Wrong usage of antibiotics raises risk of infection According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention), hospitals across the United States of America should monitor antibiotic prescribing. Over half of the patient population of USA is prescribed antibiotics, however, the CDC suggests that many of these prescriptions may be inappropriate, or might leave the patients on the drug for too long. Such prescriptions can cause long term damages or put the drug users up for hazardous complications. The activity may also cause the patients’ body to develop a bacterial infection called Clostridium Difficile. Around fifty six percent of the total hospitalized patients are prescribed antibiotics at one time or the other during their stay. This information was reviewed from over three hundred hospitals. However, one-third of the total antibiotic prescriptions for the UTI (Urinary Tract Infection), the researchers found that the wrong medicine was being prescribed altogether. The patients were being drugged without proper evaluation and testing, or were being given the medicine for too long. Moreover, another analysis of surgical wards from selected hospitals depicted that antibiotic prescription at some of these hospitals was three times greater than at other hospitals. The report said that the patients receiving powerful medication (sometimes also called as broad spectrum antibiotics) were thrice as likely to inflict the notorious disease named Clostridium Difficile. This diarrheal disease is difficult to treat and was very less common among non-antibiotic taking patients. It has been recorded that even reducing the usage of the broad-spectrum medication by around thirty percent would lead to a twenty six percent lesser chance of the C. Difficile infection. Hospitals host about 250,000 C. Difficile cases each year, which causes around fourteen thousand deaths in the United States every year. Excessive or inappropriate usage of antibiotics also contributes to many other diseases, which mostly sprout from ineffectiveness of white blood cells. This happens because the white blood cells fight diseases and infections, which is the same as the function of antibiotics. Hence, taking too much of these drugs can cause your white blood cells to grow weak as their function is already being performed. Therefore, when a person finally gets off the medication, they start to get diseases. On the other hand, we cannot deny the effectiveness of antibiotics. These are lifesaving in many situations and they are essential against many life-threatening diseases. This is the very reason that CDC wants to restrict and control the usage of these drugs instead of making them illegal.
Related Article: http://www.researchomatic.com/New-Research/Antibiotics-and-Antibodies-52644.html