If I — a professional athlete in prime physical condition — can be sacked by superbugs, anyone can.

I wasn’t nervous about a minor knee surgery. As an NFL football player who’d undergone far more extensive operations before, this procedure seemed completely routine. Little did I know that within 36 hours, I would be lying unconscious on the sofa at my daughter’s second birthday party, my right leg inflamed like an overinflated balloon.

The incision site on my knee had been infected with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant “superbug.” What my doctor had initially diagnosed as a simple infection nearly cost me my leg. It could have even taken my life.

It took weeks of intensive care, including six weeks of intravenous antibiotics, for me to recover. I was lucky to walk away from such a dangerous situation. Not everyone is as fortunate. Superbugs like MRSA kill upwards of 160,000 Americans a year. Within the next 30 years, such infections are expected to kill 10 million people around the world annually, as superbugs spread and existing antibiotics lose their efficacy.

The only way to prevent such carnage is to invent new, stronger antibiotics. And we’re not pouring nearly enough resources into research and development.

Read the full piece here.