Antibiotics: Too Much of a Good Thing?

The first antibiotic, penicillin, became widely available in 1940. Antibiotics have since become a popular treatment against many diseases. Over one-third of all hospital patients are given antibiotics and each year in excess of 240 million antibiotic prescriptions are dispensed in the United States. Although it is clear that antibiotics have a place and a purpose, a growing number of doctors and medical researchers contend that antibiotics have been grossly overused and abused, and, as a result, produce adverse reactions as well as strains of bacteria that have become resistant to antibiotics.  There are patients in hospitals that have bacterial infections against which no antibiotics are effective. This is only fifty years after antibiotics were introduced. Until around 1975, almost every case of gonorrhea was treatable with penicillin. Today, in places like Thailand and the Philippines, 90% of all cases are penicillin-resistant. In the U.S, it is above fifty percent.  Several strains of TB have emerged in the U.S. that cannot be treated with common antibiotics. Even infections such as staph and strep have become harder to treat as they have acquired resistance to standard antibiotics.

In 1997 Time magazine reported that doctors wrote 12 million antibiotic prescriptions a year for colds, bronchitis and other respiratory infections against which antibiotics are almost always useless.  This has undoubtedly contributed to the emergence of drug-resistant bacteria. Many people in our country, when presenting with a cold, go to their doctors and request antibiotics. Antibiotics have no effect on the vast majority of colds that are viral in nature and toxic side effects often occur. Taking antibiotics for viral colds are not only ineffective, but also a waste of financial resources.

The livestock industry is a major source of the antibiotic overuse that has led to bacterial resistance, purchasing half of all antibiotics sold.  They are incorporated into feed in order to kill bacteria that stunt the growth of animals. However, this gives resistant bacteria the opportunity to develop and multiply. In 1992, antibiotic-resistant bacteria killed 19,000 hospital patients and contributed to the deaths of 58,000 more.  According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, antibiotic therapy is not an effective treatment against ear infections and rates of recurrent infection are significantly higher in children who have been treated with antibiotics. 

 Our bodies contain a complex and powerful disease-fighting immune system which works 24 hours a day attacking and destroying foreign invaders such as bacteria and viruses. When this system is functioning at an optimum level, the body can best combat invading microbes. Many of the characteristic symptoms of illness, such as fevers, vomiting, and swollen glands, are signs that the immune system processes are proceeding on schedule.

“The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patient in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease.” -Thomas Edison