Scary News About Overuse of Antibiotics May 6, 2014 Public Health, SFMS Member letter to the editor, antibiotics, SFMS advocacy 0 Originally printed in the May 3, 2014 San Francisco Chronicle Letters to the Editor section in response to two articles on antibiotic overuse. Scary News About Overuse of Antibiotics The Chronicle on May 1 featured two stories on the same topic with a frightening outcome. First was "Drug resistance found worldwide," noting that the World Health Organization found deadly bacteria to be harder to treat all the time and calling this "as big a threat as terrorism." The second story noted that a California bill to restrict antibiotic use in agriculture had failed because of "strong poultry and beef lobbies ("Antibiotics ban sought amid human resistance"). The San Francisco Medical Society hosted a conference on this crucial threat a decade ago, when the evidence that mass feeding of antibiotics to livestock contributed to bacterial resistance was already strong. Such evidence has only grown stronger, and we persuaded the California and American Medical Associations to also oppose such routine use—as do many other medical and public health organizations. But still, politics impedes good policy, and thus we are left with what your story aptly terms a "ticking time bomb." When might science and sense guide our policy on this issue? Lawrence Cheung and Steve Heilig San Francisco Medical Society Comments are closed.
