NEW YEAR is traditionally when people make resolutions aimed at improving their health: giving up cigarettes, cutting back booze, renewing the gym membership. But we’d suggest there are broader resolutions worth making.
We’ve known for decades that our antibiotics are failing. We’ve known for almost as long that it will be tough to find new ones. We’ve had some surprising successes – last year we learned that a 9th-century Anglo-Saxon remedy kills MRSA – but we must do much more to tackle the problem. There are potentially thousands of new drugs out there, however, and researchers are starting to develop ways to find them (see “Mining the hidden treasure of the world’s unknown bacteria“).
But it is early days, and while we wait, we could resolve to extend the life of extant antibiotics for as long as possible. Last month, the US Food and Drug Administration reported that sales of antibiotics approved for use in livestock rose by 23 per cent between 2009 and 2014. Much of this use, linked to the growth of antibiotic resistance in humans, is not to treat infections but to promote growth.
That practice needs to end: the FDA has suggested the end of this year as a deadline. It’s for governments to set and enforce restrictions on such activity, but as citizens we can make our support known. Perhaps it is time we demanded that meat should be labelled as responsibly produced.
But we could also think about our own use. According to the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, almost a quarter of prescriptions for antibiotics won’t benefit those issued them. Why? Nine out of 10 doctors say they feel pressured to prescribe antibiotics; 97 per cent of patients who ask get them.
NICE is working on ways to change this perception of antibiotics as panacea. And sites like openprescribing.net, which makes usage patterns visible, can help. But we can help, too, by asking doctors whether we really do need antibiotics, and by resisting the temptation to demand them. That’s a resolution worth keeping – for all our health.
