Incorrect Use of Antibiotics Increases Resistance
One large part of the problem, according to the CDC, is the tendency for people to take antibiotics to fight viruses, which they cannot do. Antibiotics fight bacteria, not viruses, and will not fight colds, flu, bronchitis, runny noses, or sore throats not due to strep. Nonetheless, says CDC, “more than 10 million courses of antibiotics are prescribed each year for viral conditions that do not benefit from antibiotics.”

In North America, industrial beef, pig and poultry farming is a big unsanitary business, and antibiotics are used extensively to ward off diseases and also for non-medical reasons, such as to promote growth. In fact, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a non-profit research and advocacy group, estimates that some 70 percent of all antibiotics are used as additives in the feed given to healthy pigs, poultry and cattle. These drugs leave the animals’ bodies as waste and work their way into local water supplies, as well as right into the food chain. “Nonetheless,” says UCS, “agribusiness and the pharmaceutical industry are fighting hard to thwart restrictions on the use of antibiotics in agriculture.”

Doctors first noticed antibiotic resistance more than a decade ago when children with middle ear infections stopped responding to them. Penicillin as a treatment for strep has also become increasingly less effective. And a recently discovered strain of staph bacteria does not respond to antibiotic treatments at all, leading medical analysts to worry that certain “super bugs” could emerge that are resistant to even the most potent drugs, rendering some infections incurable. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) calls antibiotic resistance one of its “top concerns” and “one of the world’s most pressing health problems.”