While health care workers have long been aware of the problem, misuse and abuse of antibiotics persist. For example, researchers found that physicians were prescribing antibiotics for two-thirds of bronchitis sufferers and more than half of common cold sufferers. Of course physicians aren't the only culprits. Patients often demand the drugs for colds, flu, and other viruses that are not affected by antibiotics. Some patients, believing they can endlessly ward off disease, obtain prescriptions for ongoing, prophylactic antibiotic use.
Many physicians give in to such demands rather than argue with the patient.
For example, Gwen Wurm, M. D., an assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at the University, says even though many childhood ear ailments heal just as quickly without antibiotics, many physicians prescribe drugs at the slightest onset of infection. The emergence of managed care's cost-containment strategies may be exacerbating the problem. The alternative is to explain about the infection, explain why antibiotics aren't the best course of treatment, explain what parents should look out for in their child, and then have a follow-up visit in 48 hours. Although infections, when possible, should be treated with drugs that attack the harmful bacteria only, many physicians opt for broad-spectrum antibiotics that may kill many other varieties. The body's exposure to such antibiotics increases the odds of producing resistant mutations.