Experts warn about scary new antibiotic-resistant bugs

When most of us come down with an infection we assume it can be easily treated with antibiotics. But that's no longer a safe assumption. Scary new antibiotic resistant bugs are on the rise, and once easily-treated bacterial infections are turning deadly. This was topic number one for some of the nation's biggest experts in infectious disease, including Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, who discussed the issue at this year's Aspen Ideas Festival. "Antibiotic resistance has become one of the most serious threats of the 21^st century, and now leads to 750,000 deaths worldwide every year," says Diane Archer, chairwoman of Consumer Reports Board of Directors, who led a panel that featured Fauci, called "The Looming Antibiotic Crisis." Here, five key facts every consumer should know about antibiotic resistance, as discussed by the festival's "Spotlight Health" experts:

1. Antibiotic misuse breeds superbugs

Taking antibiotics when you don't need them breeds antibiotic-resistant bacteria, or "superbugs." How? When we take an antibiotic, some bacteria survive—and evolve—so that the next time they encounter that drug, it might not work against them. And misuse of the drugs is rampant: About half of all antibiotics in this country are prescribed and used inappropriately, said panelist Ramanan Laxminarayan, Ph.D., M.P.H. director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics, and Policy, a public health research organization with headquarters in Washington, D.C. and New Delhi.

2. Preserving the use of antibiotics requires a community effort

"Antibiotics are different from other drugs," Laxminarayan explained. For example, if you take a statin drug to lower your cholesterol level even though you don't have high cholesterol, that won't make the drug less effective,  he said. But every time you take an antibiotic it increases the chance that more bacteria will become resistant to the medication. Yet many people don't think their individual antibiotic use will do much harm. "In the same way that we don't pay much attention to climate change when we decide to fly or take a car because we think our impact on that is really so small, we underestimate the impact that all of us collectively have on antibiotics," Laxminarayan said.

3. Farms may pose the biggest threat

About 80 percent of the antibiotics used in the U.S. are actually administered on farms, mostly to make livestock grow faster and to prevent (not treat) disease. So combating the spread of resistant bacteria depends on curbing the excessive use of the drugs in raising animals for food, said panelist Margaret Hamburg, M.D., former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. New guidance from the FDA urges producers to phase out the use of antibiotics for growth promotion, and new FDA rules require veterinary oversight of administering antibiotics to animals. But those policies may not be stringent enough, said Laxminarayan. "Farmers could just say that they need the drugs to prevent their animals from getting sick, and carry on as before," he said. And even Hamburg admits that "there is still going to be significant use of antibiotics in animal agriculture."

Read our special investigation "The Rise of Superbugs," find out when to say no to antibiotics and learn how to avoid superbugs at the gym. Also learn why antibiotics won't help with the cold or flu, and other common misconceptions.

4. Creating new antibiotics isn't necessarily the solution

While drug makers have introduced relatively few new antibiotics in recent years, fast-tracking approval of more drugs won't help much if doctors and patients continue to misuse the medications, Laxminarayan said. "You can have a new drug in five years, but that can become obsolete if we don't use it appropriately," he said. "Instead, we need better stewardship of the drugs we already have," he said. That includes making sure they are not used inappropriately by doctors, consumers, and farmers, and keeping track of the antibiotics that are prescribed.

5. Doctors are part of the problem, too

Patients often ask for antibiotics to treat a cold and the flu—even though those diseases are caused by viruses, not bacteria—and antibiotics don't work against viruses. Yet doctors frequently prescribe the drugs anyway. Why? "There is an extraordinarily powerful urge to please the patient and to alleviate the anxiety," said Fauci. So don't insist on getting an antibiotic when you have an upper respiratory tract infection. And if your doctor recommends an antibiotic, ask if she is certain that the infection is caused by a bacteria and, if so, if the drug prescribed targets that specific bacteria.

—Lauren Cooper