You may have heard that overuse of antibiotics has created dangerous “superbugs” that no antibiotic drug can tame or about people losing hands, feet, legs and arms to these “flesh-eating” superbugs. Could you get attacked by one? It’s possible. But maintaining a strong immune system can keep you safe from harm. In 1947, just four years after penicillin was mass marketed, a common bacterium, found on the mucus membranes and skin of about 1/3 of the population, called Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) was found to be resistant to it. That is, someone got a staph infection, and a health practitioner gave them penicillin expecting it to make short work of the critter . . . but it didn’t. Oh-oh. Methicillin then became the antibiotic of choice. But an S. aureus was found to be resistant to methicillin in 1961. Oh-oh again. This time the resistant strains of S. aureus were called methicillin-resistant S. aureus, or MRSA. Vancomycin became the next antibiotic of choice; the first vancomyc…