What people should do is be more conservative. In the days before antibiotics people were more cautious about avoiding infection. Tuberculosis can easily be spread by dried spit. Mitscher cautions against becoming obsessive, but he does recommend commonsense cleanliness, the kind your mother preached. Wash your hands.
Men are particularly poor at washing up after using the facilities.
People should wash their hands for 30 seconds after using the bathroom. Be careful around ill people and don't drink from the same glass. While cleanliness can help control the spread of infection and using existing antibiotics appropriately can slow down the growth of resistant strains, we need new antibiotics to fight bacteria that have already developed resistance. During the 1980s, pharmaceutical companies scaled back their research and development of new antibiotics. Recently, though, these same companies have been playing catch-up, trying to get out in front of the wave of resistance.