What Antibiotic
Resistance Means

In 1954, two millions pounds of antibiotics were produced in the United States. Today, that figure exceeds 50 million pounds.

Bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics when they have been exposed to the antibiotic but have developed ways to fight and survive them. Then they simply multiply and begin to cause symptoms. Resistant bacteria can be transmitted to others and they too will become ill with antibiotic resistant strains.

In hospitals, 190 million doses are administered each day. Among non-hospitalized patients, more than 133 million courses of antibiotics are prescribed by doctors each year. It is estimated that 50% of these latter prescriptions are unnecessary since they are being prescribed for colds, coughs and other viral infections.

The unnecessary use, the misuse and the abuse of antibiotics as led to the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria strains.

The most common misuse and abuse of antibiotics are:

  • physicians prescribing inappropriate and indiscriminate antibiotic use
  • taking antibiotics for viral, not bacterial infections. This use makes you more susceptible to developing an antibiotic resistant strain of bacteria which can live and multiply unhindered
  • not finishing the full dosage as prescribed leaves some bacteria alive and "resistant" to future antibiotic treatment

"The evidence is everywhere," says U.S. News Online, "Bostonians carry resistant E. coli in their guts; a Vermont high-school wrestling team is infected with resistant Staphyloccoccus aureus; multidrug-resistant salmonella infects farmers and their cows; an outbreak of resistant tuberculosis sweeps through a California high school." Recent studies conducted by the Center for Disease Control, found that 25% of the people sampled had pneumococcal infections&endash;pneumonia, meningitis, ear infections&endash; resistant to penicillin, which was once nearly infallible in killing the germs. Among children under age 6, more than 40 percent had infections resistant to penicillin.

According to Dr. Jack Dillenberg, Director of the Arizona Department of Health Services, "This super bacteria explosion is a public health crisis of the first order. If left unchecked, we face potentially devastating consequences including widespread sickness and death from once-curable diseases."
Smart use of antibiotics is the key to decreasing, or even reversing, the spread of resistance.

 

 

© 1999 Prairie Public Broadcasting, Inc.