Miracle Drugs
When my son was 2 years old, my wife caught a cold which took a turn for the worse. Eventually, she was coughing every minute and was unable to sleep at all. After a couple of trips to the doctor, it was determined she had pneumonia, and was given a powerful antibiotic. After just a few days on the antibiotic, she was much improved, and able to sleep and recuperate. In the days before antibiotics, I may have become a widower. They truly are miracle drugs.Unfortunately, there are bacteria which have become adapted and can survive the most powerful antibiotic drugs we have. These are the so-called superbugs. We have created these superbugs through overuse of antibiotics.
Infections of the ear, urinary tract, skin and lungs are increasingly taking stubborn forms requiring more antibiotics or combinations to cure. New strains of age-old infectious bacteria are getting harder and harder to treat.
Superbugs
MRSA -- methicillin-resistant (or multi-drug-resistant) Staphylococcus aureus -- is increasingly attacking healthy people, mostly as nasty, invasive skin infections, but also as aggressive pneumonias. Staphylococcus aureus ("staph") is a very common bacteria, and is part of the normal flora found on the skin and in nasal passages. MRSA is sometimes known as the "flesh eating" bacteria, and has made the news frequently, such as this young women who recently survived her battle with this antibiotic-resistant bacteria after cutting her leg on a tree.Meanwhile, certain other bacteria like Acinetobacter baumannii and Klebsiella pneumonia are becoming more lethal, attacking vulnerable hospitalized patients. Sometimes, they are unaffected by most or all antibiotics available to physicians. Such bacteria are still the exception, but they illustrate the importance of attempts to stem the proliferation of drug-resistant bacteria.
In 2010, just one of these superbugs, MRSA, caused serious infections in some 80,042 Americans, and killed 11,478. [1]
Antibiotic overuse and abuse
How have these superbugs come about? We have saturated our environment with antibiotics, drugs we created to fight bacterial infections. Some 7 million pounds of antibiotics are sold for human use each year, while 29 million pounds are sold for use in animals, mostly food animals. This represents a gross overuse of the drugs, and makes it less likely they will work for fighting infections when we need them.Bacteria exist in teeming numbers -- in fact, our own resident bacteria, mostly good helpful bacteria aiding our digestion, outnumber our own body's cells, although much smaller in size. They reproduce rapidly and can pass on genetic traits including resistance to antibiotics not just to succeeding generations but also to other, different strains of bacteria. The more often they encounter antibiotics, the more quickly they adapt to them, becoming resistant and hardier.
Respiratory infections such as coughs and colds account for 60 to 70 percent of all antibiotics prescribed in doctors' offices, but only one in five of those infections really need antiobiotics. [2] The greatest majority of those illnesses are due to viruses, not bacteria. Antibiotics have no effect at all on viruses. Some patients want an antibiotic even if there's only a small chance it will help, and doctors often go along with them. Instead, make sure your doctor knows you want an antibiotic only if it's absolutely necessary.
Some patients also fail to take the entire course of antibiotics as prescribed, or even save pills for later use or to share. This allows germs to persist, develop resistance and may allow them to come roaring back causing an even more serious illness. The U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that in hospitals, nearly half of all antibiotic prescriptions are inappropriate.
Don't take antibiotics without a physician's advice, and only when necessary. Don't take antibiotics for the common cold. Be sure to take antibiotics exactly as prescribed, completing the entire course unless otherwise advised by a doctor.
Effect on the Individual and the Community
Antibiotic use affects the individual and the community. It changes the mix of bacteria living in the gut and on the skin, killing weak bacteria and giving drug-resistant bacteria a chance to take hold. Research suggests taking commonly prescribed antibiotics increases one's own risk of being infected with MRSA. Recent or current treatment with antibiotics is the single biggest risk factor for infection with Clostridium difficile ("C.diff"), a drug-resistant bacteria that can cause severe diarrhea. Found most commonly in health care facilities, this bacteria is estimated in being linked with 14,000 American deaths per year.Resistant bugs can also be passed to household members, like any bacteria. One study found that family members of a person taking antibiotics for acne were more likely to have drug-resistant acne germs on their skin.
According to the CDC (April 2011), antibiotic resistance in the United States costs an estimated $20 billion a year in excess health care costs, $35 billion in other societal costs and more than 8 million additional days that people spend in the hospital.
Not Just People
Human medicine isn't the only place where antibiotics are used too frequently. Most cattle, pigs and poultry are given antibiotics, not just to treat illnesses or to prevent the spread of disease, but also to promote faster growth. These drugs are often the same as or very similar to drugs used to treat people.
Eating contaminated meat transmits superbugs created in animal use of antibiotics to humans. In 2011, 136 people in 34 states got sick and one person died after eating ground turkey carrying a strain of salmonella resistant to multiple antibiotics. Farms also spread the bacteria. Most of the bacteria end up outside the animal, as fecal matter. Where does the fecal matter go? Into the water and into the soil. The soil dries and gets broken into dust. Everybody is downwind or downstream from someone else.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently issued new guidelines that call for a halt to the usage of antibiotics to enhance growth in animals. One wonders where the U.S. Department of Agriculture is on this issue.
The Future?
Antibiotic resistance is a complex, global and growing problem. Resistance is produced by the misuse of antibiotics. Lives are already being lost to antibiotic resistance. We need to get antibiotics out of the environment as best we can.
(*) The Rise of Resistance -- reference
[1] U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
[2] Ralph Gonzales, M.D., University of California, San Francisco
