Health News
The next time you ask your doctor for an antibiotic, or if he or she offers to give you one, think again. It might do your health no good, but could be bad for public health.
"Every time an antibiotic is used ... future effectiveness of that drug is diminished," but Kentuckians take antibiotics at the second highest rate in the country, with 1,205 prescriptions per 1,000 people, says a study by the Centers for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy. Only West Virginia had a higher rate, 1,214 per 1,000.
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- Kentucky Is No. 1 State In Overuse Of Antibiotics, A Problem That Poses Wide Dangers To The Drugs' Effectiveness
In 2010 the average number of dispensed outpatient antibiotic prescriptions was 801 per 1,000 Americans. In Kentucky it was 1,197. The darker the state, the higher the rate. (CDC map)Americans, especially Kentuckians, are taking too many...
- Use Of Pacifiers Could Lead To Very Sick Babies, Study Finds
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Health News
Kentucky second highest in antibiotic consumption in U.S.
The next time you ask your doctor for an antibiotic, or if he or she offers to give you one, think again. It might do your health no good, but could be bad for public health."Every time an antibiotic is used ... future effectiveness of that drug is diminished," but Kentuckians take antibiotics at the second highest rate in the country, with 1,205 prescriptions per 1,000 people, says a study by the Centers for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy. Only West Virginia had a higher rate, 1,214 per 1,000.
Studies show 1 million antibiotics are prescribed unnecessarily every year. "Though antibiotics offer no benefits for colds and other viral infections, many people, including doctors, continue to view these drugs as a quick fix," said a press release by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which helped fund the study.
The problem with the overuse of antibiotics is that bacterial infections become resistant to them. To illustrate the issue, CDDEP says, "High-level penicillin resistance in Streptococcus pneumonia in the United States has experienced a thousand-fold increase in the last 20 years," rising from 0.02 percent in 1987 to more than 20 percent in 2004. The prevalence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus ? known more commonly as staph ? increased from about 2 percent in 1974 to 50 percent in many U.S. hospitals in 2004.
"The problem of resistance is an evolutionary game played between humans and microbes: we try to stay ahead by creating new antibiotics, and microbes develop resistance to our drugs," CDDEP reports. "Unfortunately for us, microbes evolve resistance to antibiotics faster than we can create new drugs, meaning that, in recent years, bacteria have been winning this 'arms race.'"
Though there is no cure to resistance, managing the levels at which people become resistant is possible through judicious prescribing, vaccination, hospital infection control, treatment strategies and new antibiotics. (Read more)
- Initial Research Is Promising For An Ancient Combination Of Natural Ingredients To Kill Mrsa, An Antibiotic-resistant Superbug
Researchers in England say an ancient folk cure might help kill the superbug MRSA, Justin Moyer reports for The Washington Post. MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, is among the infections that have grown resistant to antibiotics...
- 'superbug' Considered The Worst One Yet Is Still Not Widespread In Kentucky Hospitals, But Officials Predict It Is Coming
A new deadly superbug that is almost totally resistant to antibiotics and kills about half who get bloodstream infections has found its way to community hospitals in the Southeastern United States, Laura Ungar reports for The Courier-Journal. "We...
- Nightmare, Drug-resistant Superbugs, Including One That Kills Half The People Who Get It, Are A Big Threat
"Nightmare bacteria" leading to deadly infections that are difficult and sometimes impossible to treat are on the rise in American hospitals, and threaten to spread to otherwise healthy people outside of medical facilities, according to a federal Centers...
- Kentucky Is No. 1 State In Overuse Of Antibiotics, A Problem That Poses Wide Dangers To The Drugs' Effectiveness
In 2010 the average number of dispensed outpatient antibiotic prescriptions was 801 per 1,000 Americans. In Kentucky it was 1,197. The darker the state, the higher the rate. (CDC map)Americans, especially Kentuckians, are taking too many...
- Use Of Pacifiers Could Lead To Very Sick Babies, Study Finds
Oklahoma State University researchers report that they have found a wide range of disease-causing bacteria, fungus and mold on pacifiers that young children had been using. In research presented at the American Society for Clinical Pathology, scientists...