During my nine years in the NFL, I ruptured tendons in my fingers, suffered multiple concussions, and broke several bones. I tore my ACL, MCL, and PCL, and completely blew out my left knee. That last injury should have ended my career. But it didn’t. I put myself back together and played through the pain.

What finally took me down? A tiny bug I had never heard of and couldn’t see. A drug-resistant staph infection called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus cost me my NFL career—and almost my life.

MRSA is one of many deadly, antibiotic-resistant infections. Together, these “superbugs” kill 160,000 Americans every year. And that number is expected to skyrocket. By 2050, they could kill 10 million people around the world every year.

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