Antibiotic resistant pathogens are an emerging, critical human health issue. Two million Americans are infected each year with diseases resistant to known antibiotics; between ten and fifteen thousand die. Most people equate antibiotic resistance to the medical field. And, the field of agriculture has been blamed for making this worse by using concentrated feed operations that leak antibiotics into surrounding waterways. However, research shows that antibiotic resistance is a natural occurrence in our soils. Simplistically, bacteria and fungi living in soils have to compete for few food resources. Over millennia, some bacteria and fungi developed the ability to produce antibiotic chemicals in order to kill their competition. Because they produce these antibiotics, they are naturally immune to the effects of their own excretions.