Antibiotic Resistance: A Story of the World’s Medical Misusage

Lia Galindo

Antibiotic resistance has become an increasingly prevalent issue as the misuse and overuse of antibiotic drugs occur daily on a worldwide basis. The global healthcare system has enabled and directly stimulated the development of lethal, antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The future issue will not be a lack of effective treatment for microbial infections, as it was in the past, but rather an abundance of ineffective medicine. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), there are 2.8 million annual antibiotic-resistant-related infections in the U.S., resulting in the death of 35,000 people each year.¹

While the U.S. continues to mismanage antibiotics via overuse, antibiotic resistance has become increasingly relevant within developing countries. However, the conflict is generated by the lack of antibiotic resources, as resistant microbial strains spread broadly around the world. Such a circumstance is only further strained by the U.S. population’s overconsumption of the antibiotic supply. The continuing threat of antibiotic resistance is a matter of ignorance and inefficiency on behalf of the US government. Ironically, it is the dependency of the US on antimicrobials, rather than any lack of medical resources, that drastically increases the dangers of antibiotic resistance. To address this impending dilemma, policies should be implemented to educate the US healthcare system, specifically physicians and policymakers, to neither misprescribe nor overprescribe the usage of antibiotics. Antibiotic resistance is an equally prevalent conflict across the globe, with the long-term effects rendering ever more severe impacts on the most vulnerable populations worldwide.

American society has normalized the automatic prescription of antibiotics when providing treatment to patients with infections, when, in reality, these medications tend to fail to alleviate the symptoms or facilitate the recovery process effectively. Many illnesses being addressed with antibiotics have no relation to bacteria, therefore consuming valuable resources. The issue commences at the physician level, in which qualified medical practitioners have become overly dependent on antibiotic prescriptions when failing to diagnose a patient directly.² Research has revealed that around 1 in 3 antibiotic prescriptions are unnecessary, which accumulates to an annual total of over 47 million prescriptions.² While physicians are directly responsible for overprescribing these medications, their logic is not completely baseless. In a society where failure to provide any treatment may result in patient hysteria or elevate a conflict in mental health, recommending antibiotics as an alternative to no other treatment is reasonable. Moreover, it is understandably challenging for physicians to recognize the negative implications of their prescriptions on public health, when their immediate concern is curing the patient in front of them.

Although various medical professionals have openly expressed concern over growing antibiotic resistance for the last 70 years, such warnings have been neglected by both the general public and governmental institutions.³ While liability for this threat must be acknowledged by medical professionals, lackluster state and federal policies also bear responsibility for the rise in antibiotic resistance. The lack of regulation over the American healthcare system is well-exemplified by the absence of relevant and effectively implemented policies on antibiotic resistance or antibiotic usage. Only in recent years has the CDC acted on these pressing health concerns, with the Office of Antibiotic Stewardship only conducting a review of published studies to characterize antibiotic prescribing health inequities as recently as 2022.⁴ The most recent development in federal antibiotic policy has occurred in 2023, with the CDC Office of Antibiotic Stewardship detailing updated guidelines and resources to implement “antimicrobial and diagnostic stewardship across the spectrum of healthcare”.⁴ It is crucial for the federal government to take timely action septs to recognize, research, and act on this impending health crisis that has further magnified the threat infectious diseases pose to human life and wellness.

The government’s current lack of consideration towards the long-term progression of antibiotic resistance is further reflected in their insufficient support for accelerating novel antibiotic development programs. Although the stock is abundant, antibiotics have a limited number of variations, which diminishes their effectiveness in the long term. In March 2020 the U.S. Government Accountability Office encouraged the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to develop programs to encourage the formulation of new treatments addressing antibiotic-resistant infections.⁵ Although national declarations have suggested imminent action addressing the increasing presence of antibiotic resistance, such statements have failed to conjure the desired results. As explained by the CDC, the U.S. National Action Plan for Combating Antibiotic-Resistance Bacteria was initially enforced in 2015 and was meant to conclude in 2020, but it has since been extended to 2025 due to a lack of progress.⁶ This demonstrates the greater implications that US society overall has failed to become aware of the severity of the issue at hand. The impending threat of this biological phenomenon is not reduced by the denial of newly produced antibiotics, as Medical News Today states that a 2004 report had noted a decrease of 56% in federal approval of these treatments.³ The inaction on behalf of these governmental institutions will soon result in the exhaustion of effective antibiotics, inducing challenges for both human health and the US healthcare system.

From a global perspective, antibiotic resistance has rapidly increased in its prevalence amongst developing nations. Statistics portraying the fatality of the situation are provided by the CDC: over 58,000 infant deaths within a year in India due to antibiotic-resistant infections transmitted by their mothers, alongside Thailand’s antibiotic-resistant bacteria dispersion causing over 38,000 annual deaths.⁷ Countries around the world are being affected by antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and the issue is worsened by a general lack of access to medications as well as the mismanagement of such medications. With already reduced medical resources, many developing countries are forced to endure progressively dire situations, with the National Institute of Health expecting little advancements as the majority of pharmaceutical companies have withdrawn from antibiotic research and development programs, as observed in 15 of the 18 globally largest pharmaceutical firms within the prior 30 years.⁸ Antibiotic resistance in developing countries is further expedited by unhygienic conditions, which increase infection rates. With a lack of control over sanitized environments and tools, the diffusion of these antibiotic-resistant strains is often done unknowingly, which further increases the death toll due to these infections.

The collective failure of healthcare systems to appropriately manage antibiotics has empowered the rise of various antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains, endangering countless lives around the world. Thus, the solution must also be a collective one; it must take place at the individual, national, and international scale. Demanding efficiency and efficacy in antibacterial stewardship will ultimately ensure the eradication of mortality by antibiotic resistance– freeing humanity of its indolence.

References

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