Doctors and pharmacists must instruct patients when to use antibiotics, and about the importance of finishing a course of treatment. In addition, all children must be vaccinated against infectious diseases. Developed nations must also improve their vaccination rates and drastically reduce antibiotic usage. The easiest place to start is to greatly reduce the use of antibiotics to fatten animals. The Food and Drug Administration is tightening the use of some antibiotics in animals, but it needs to go further.
Patient education is also critical.
Doctors, who should know better, need to resist demands for antibiotics from patients with colds. The new antimicrobial soaps and cleaners made for household use also contribute to drug resistance by killing only weak bacteria. They should be used sparingly, as when tending to a sick person with a weak immune system. Most people alive today do not remember a world without antimicrobial agents, when the possibility of death lurked in every cough or upset stomach. If we do not reform our use of medicines, this is the world we might bequeath to our children.