To those who take antibiotics – the resistance crisis is not your fault | Hannah Flynn

A new government campaign suggesting that growing antimicrobial resistance is the fault of patients is lazy and dishonest

Singing and dancing pills are the latest weapon to be pulled out of the NHS’s public health armoury, in a last-ditch battle to beat antibiotic resistance. The animated capsules are featured in Public Health England’s Keep Antibiotics Working campaign, which was unveiled earlier this week, and aims to encourage patients to use fewer antibiotics. Yet like all other attempts to curb the impending antibiotic Armageddon, it will fail. Why? Because it is based on the lazy assumption that patients are to blame.

We should be in a strong position to curb the threat of antimicrobial resistance in the UK, as our comparatively non-interventionist approach to illness (necessitated by having one of the lowest spends per capita on healthcare in the western world) has meant we have a much stronger grip on prescribing than many other places. This is admirable and should be celebrated more than it is, yet this is exactly why a campaign encouraging people to use fewer antibiotics is destined to fail. Patients aren’t the decision-makers here.

Related: Antibiotic resistance could spell end of modern medicine, says chief medic

Using antibiotics as growth agents has been banned in the EU since 2006, but it isn’t in the US

Continue reading... October 26, 2017 at 03:19PM