Antibiotic Resistance
Is antibiotic resistance really going to be the next biggest health epidemic? We’ve used antibiotics as the 20th Century “cure-all” for everything from most human ailments to animal husbandry. Even when we were told that antibiotics didn’t cure the common cold, we still demanded them from our doctors. Did you know that animals raised for human consumption are routinely fed antibiotics? So what’s the problem with using this miracle drug? Our bodies have become resistant to them so we need more powerful antibiotics to do the same job that the antibiotics of yesteryear could do.
As we overused antibiotics for the past 50+ years, the “superbugs” (bacteria that are now resistant to multiple antibiotic strains) need bigger and better antibiotics to kill them — and we simply don’t have them. Antibiotics are created from chemicals that exist in nature first, and then scientists try to replicate a synthetic version in the lab. The easy antibiotics have already been discovered; but, new discoveries are few and far between.
The World Health Organization (WHO) just announced that gonorrhea, a sexually-transmitted disease, is becoming untreatable because of antibiotic resistance. The United Nations General Assembly is organizing a landmark meeting to discuss antibiotic resistance because it is expected to cause 10 million deaths by 2050 – that’s up from 700,000 annually today. To give you a sense of how worried they are about antibiotic resistance, the United Nations General Assembly has met only 3 times in the past to discuss health crises: (1) in 2011 about HIV and AIDS; (2) in 2012 to discuss cancer and diabetes, and (3) in 2014 to discuss Ebola. This is a big deal, and sadly, it’s something that we have created ourselves.
A world without antibiotics sends us back to medicine pre-1928 when Fleming discovered penicillin. Transplant surgeries will become virtually impossible because organ recipients need to take immune-suppressing drugs for life to stop rejection of a new heart or kidney. Removing a burst appendix becomes dangerous without antibiotics to prevent the wound from becoming infected. Pneumonia may become a mass-killer of the elderly, and tuberculosis may become incurable.
So, what can we do about antibiotic resistance? First, we can stop overusing antibiotics for minor infections that will probably heal themselves. In other words, don’t request antibiotics when your doctor thinks you don’t need them. We can also prevent infections by practicing good hand hygiene – yup! – wash your hands with good ol’ soap and water before touching your food, eyes, and mouth. Don’t use antibacterial soaps because they actually promote antibiotic resistance. Eat meat from animals that were raised without antibiotics. And, get your vaccines so your body can ward off diseases without relying on antibiotics.
Today’s a good day to start using these practices to ward off antibiotic resistance. We really don’t want to live in a world without antibiotics – it’ll set us back 100 years!
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