Antibiotics are a tool to fight off bacterial infections.
However, through our own negligence, and insecurities have caused mutated
bacteria to thrive and be almost entirely resistant to modern medicines such as
antibiotics. Let's discuss.
We caused the problem: The problem is caused by overuse of
antibiotics. There are cases when doctors prescribe antibiotics to a
patient despite the patient not having a bacterial infection in the first
place. Also, doctors will give antibiotics to patients that are
disproportionately stronger than needed to fight the infection. The
result is that bacteria immune to that antibiotic surviving and without
competition living on to become a problem for the human host. But this is
only a small portion of this problem.
The biggest problem: What is hurting us the most in the
battle against bacterial diseases is not doctors, but farmers. Farmers
use about 80% of all antibiotics on the market on their livestock to keep them
from getting sick. However, this has the same issue as it does on people,
leaving behind immune bacterial stains. On top of this, those antibiotics
end up in our food, which in turn we take in and compound the problem further.
Solution: Less antibiotics is the only real
way to solve this problem. Doctors have to prescribe only the weakest
antibiotics that are equal to the job, leaving the more powerful ones for later
if and only if needed. They also cannot just prescribe drugs to patients
when it has no bearing on their condition.
We also have to get farmers to stop using
all these antibiotics on their livestock, the food we eat. It is becoming
detrimental to the health of all of us if we create a bacteria that cannot be
cured. Simply by not giving these animals antibiotics unless they are
sick is the only real method to stopping the super bug problem.
Conclusion: Antibiotics already do harm to the body in the form
of killing good bacteria and ruining the small intestines. But to top it
off we can be creating the next black plague. So can we be responsible
and fix this problem before it is too late.
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