By Morgan Dewey
Antibiotic resistance has been in the news for the past several years. Resistance is a widely discussed topic in both food safety and medicine. The WHO calls antibiotic resistance “one of the biggest threats to global health, food security, and development today.” Why is overuse of a medicine such a massive threat?
Antibiotics are used to treat illnesses in us and to prevent illnesses in the animals that we consume. The bacteria that the antibiotics kill, however, are constantly and rapidly evolving. The antibiotic kills a selection of the bacteria, and the more that antibiotic is used the fewer bacteria it kills. The more bacteria are exposed to a certain antibiotic, the more bacteria will have the potential to evolve to resist it. Treating all animals with antibiotics is problematic because many of these animals would never become sick, so resistant strains are given the opportunity to grow in animals that may not need antibiotics. When you eat meat that was treated with antibiotics, you have a greater chance of encountering resistant foodborne diseases such as E. coli and salmonella. The resistance leads to longer, more expensive hospital stays. Eventually, it could lead to an untreatable and potentially lethal infection.
On the medical side, overuse of antibiotics and unfinished courses contribute heavily to antibiotic resistance. Overuse can be caused by purchasing too many antibiotics in some countries and over-prescribing in others. The overuse once again provides harmful bacteria with more opportunity to evolve against common antibiotics. This leads to drug resistant strains of pneumonia, tuberculosis, gonorrhea, and other illnesses. Antibiotics are an incredible tool in medicine. Doctors, however, are prescribing them without confirming the presence of a bacterial infection or to placate a patient demanding treatment for their virus. Viruses such as the common cold do not have an effective medical cure and patients can become frustrated when the doctor recommends cold medicine to control the symptoms. This type of unnecessary prescription contributes to antibiotic resistance internationally and needs to be controlled as more drug resistant strains appear. Additionally, patients who stop taking their antibiotics when they feel better likely leave infectious bacteria alive to evolve against that antibiotic. Patients need to take the full course of their antibiotics in order to use them safely.
To do your part to stop antibiotic resistance, buy antibiotic free meat and take a full course of antibiotics only when you truly need it.
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