The evils of antibiotics
Every year, we all face our fair share of colds, sore throats, and other infections. But when it's time to see the doctor for these illnesses, don’t you automatically expect a prescription for antibiotics? Well chances are you do and if you don’t well then, spoiler alert, you're getting antibiotics. Many people go to the doctor's office with this expectation and they're surprised and even angry if they leave empty-handed. After all, who doesn’t want to get well as quickly as possible? But believe it or not, you're doing yourself a favor by not accepting these antibiotics. In fact, your doctor is doing humanity a favor by neglecting to give you a prescription.
What are antibiotics?
There are trillions of tiny bacteria all around us, many of which can cause infection. Antibiotics are medicines used to assist the body stop infections caused by bacteria. The term antibiotic means “against life” so technically any drug that kills
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However, this could not be more wrong. More antibiotics is not the answer, this will just worsen the already terrible situation. Drug-resistant infections take a huge toll in the United States and across the world. Just one organism known as, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), kills more Americans every year than emphysema, HIV/AIDS, Parkinson’s disease and homicide COMBINED. Almost 2 million Americans per year develop hospital acquired infections, resulting in 99,000 deaths. Most of these infections are due to antibacterial-resistant pathogens because as mentioned earlier this is the ideal environment for these resistant bacteria to thrive. Two common hospital acquired infections alone (sepsis and pneumonia) killed nearly 50,000 Americans and cost the U.S. health care system more than $8 billion in just 2006