Pitt study finds kids who can’t use drugs

An alarming bit of research from Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh found that certain… An alarming bit of research from Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh found that certain antibiotics are ineffective for twice as many Pittsburgh kids as the projected national average. Almost 10 percent of Pittsburgh kids are resistant to a family of antibiotics, compared to the national rate — reportedly 5 or 6 percent — according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Though researchers are hesitant to say why Pittsburgh has such high rates, the study states that such regional variation may indicate a coming rise in resistance nationwide. However, researchers were not hesitant to cite “inappropriate use” as a possible cause of this resistance. And the Centers for Disease Control note that antibiotic resistance is primarily caused by overmedication.

Such overmedication is all too common. Because people associate pills with cures, they ask for medication, and doctors prescribe it. While this can be done to stave off secondary infections — a serious threat — it is also done to assuage parents’ fears about their children.

Antibiotics are powerful medical tools — ones that have saved countless lives. If they are to continue being effective, they must not be overused. If antibiotics are given unnecessarily, they kill all the bacteria in an organism, save a few that carry resistance to the medication. These will then reproduce, rendering antibiotics useless in hosts who carry these bacteria. Such resistance spreads rapidly, and is a matter of public, as well as individual, health.

This resistance may also be indicative of changes in medical care. Doctors now work at the behest of larger corporations and have less time to spend with patients, making medication, rather than careful diagnoses, the solution to many problems.

The Pittsburgh study, which was published in the February edition of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, tested a variety of streptococcal bacteria — the bacteria responsible for strep throat. These bacteria were taken from children and were found to be resistant to macrolides, a family of antibiotics including erythromycin. Strep throat has many symptoms that resemble common viral diseases such as the flu or the common colds. Antibiotics, which kill bacteria, are useless for these.

People want something tangible to battle disease, something more scientific than, say, chicken soup. But chicken soup was actually found to mitigate upper respiratory tract infections, in a study published in Chest, a medical journal focusing on the cardiopulmonary region.

Such remedies may seem old-fashioned in light of recent medical technologies. But human bodies are equipped to handle many infections without the aid of antibiotics. Our entire immune system has evolved many ways of dealing with invading organisms. And if people continue to demand antibiotics, such defenses might be the best thing we have against strep season.