Antibiotic Overuse: Our Downfall?
The more we use antibiotics, the less effective they will be. And when we feed them to livestock, and over-prescribe them, their life of usefulness decreases:
Wrongful or overuse of antibiotics has a perverse effect-causing the kinds of bacteria that these drugs can no longer destroy. The World Health Organization has cited antibiotic resistance as one of the three most serious public health threats of the 21st century.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes that just in hospitals, where between 5 and 10 percent of all patients develop an infection, about 90,000 of these patients die each year as a result of their infection. This toll is up from 13,300 patient deaths in 1992. Some percentage of these people have problems because of antibiotic resistance.
Too many doctors still prescribe antibiotics for viral infections that should not be treated with antibiotics. They don’t work on viruses. These include, says Dr. Wolfe, “colds, flu-in the absence of bacterial complications, most coughs and bronchitis, sore throats (except those resulting from strep throat) and some ear infections.
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/222198-Overuse-of-Antibiotics
Imagine your life, or your family’s life, when antibiotics no longer work. We will be back in the Victorian era, or beyond. People will die of things that we are ambivalent about today.