The Tragedy We Created: Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria
Antibiotic resistant bacteria, commonly known as superbugs, take credit for 700,000 fatalities every year. Out of the 700,000 annual deaths, 23,000 took place in the United States. Superbugs, defined as bacteria resistant to medication, exists as a festering boil on the face of modern medicine. Patients, doctors, and farmers alike play a role in allowing bacteria to have the upper-hand (The Antibiotic Resistance Crisis). Now more than ever, it is of the upmost importance that each key player in the superbug skirmish arm themselves with knowledge and information to win the war before it is too late.
The development of superbug bacteria began in the early 1940s with the discovery and expansion of the first antibiotic, penicillin (Discovery and Development of Penicillin). Each time a patient takes an antibiotic, the majority of the target microorganisms are …show more content…
Medical doctors descend into the second group of individuals responsible for the superbug war. Physicians prescribe 262.5 million courses of antibiotics annually in the United States or five prescriptions for every six people (Measuring Outpatient Antibiotic Prescribing). Several components attribute to the gigantic number of antibiotics prescribed across the country. First, the rate of misdiagnoses concerning bacterial and viral infections escalated in the last ten years. A study published by the Centers for Disease Control stated that one in three antibiotic prescriptions are unnecessary (CDC: 1 in 3 antibiotic prescriptions unnecessary). This statistic transforms into a distress signal for the medical community. The higher number of patients taking unwarranted antibiotics translates into more opportunities for bacteria to share their resistant genome with the next
Antibiotic resistant bacteria, commonly known as superbugs, take credit for 700,000 fatalities every year. Out of the 700,000 annual deaths, 23,000 took place in the United States. Superbugs, defined as bacteria resistant to medication, exists as a festering boil on the face of modern medicine. Patients, doctors, and farmers alike play a role in allowing bacteria to have the upper-hand (The Antibiotic Resistance Crisis). Now more than ever, it is of the upmost importance that each key player in the superbug skirmish arm themselves with knowledge and information to win the war before it is too late.
The development of superbug bacteria began in the early 1940s with the discovery and expansion of the first antibiotic, penicillin (Discovery and Development of Penicillin). Each time a patient takes an antibiotic, the majority of the target microorganisms are …show more content…
Medical doctors descend into the second group of individuals responsible for the superbug war. Physicians prescribe 262.5 million courses of antibiotics annually in the United States or five prescriptions for every six people (Measuring Outpatient Antibiotic Prescribing). Several components attribute to the gigantic number of antibiotics prescribed across the country. First, the rate of misdiagnoses concerning bacterial and viral infections escalated in the last ten years. A study published by the Centers for Disease Control stated that one in three antibiotic prescriptions are unnecessary (CDC: 1 in 3 antibiotic prescriptions unnecessary). This statistic transforms into a distress signal for the medical community. The higher number of patients taking unwarranted antibiotics translates into more opportunities for bacteria to share their resistant genome with the next