Health Experts Are Explaining Drug-Resistant Bacteria Poorly [View all]

[damnedifIknow]

This week marks the first ever World Antibiotic Awareness Week—an effort to teach people about microbes that can withstand our most potent drugs and cause untreatable illnesses. The threat has certainly been getting a lot of media time: Headlines warn of millions of deaths, while health experts invoke an “apocalyptic” threat that’s bigger than terrorism or climate change.

But what happens when these drumbeats of doom reach the ears of listeners?

*For a start, the interviewees largely don’t know how antibiotics work or haven’t thought about it. Most don’t make a distinction between bacterial and viral infections, let alone understand that antibiotics are useless for the latter. Instead, they gauge their need for antibiotics based on the severity of their illness. If they feel really bad, if they aren’t getting better, or it over-the-counter drugs aren’t working, it’s time for a prescription.

*This makes life very hard for doctors. Patients will kick up a fuss if they are denied prescriptions, or exaggerate the nature of their symptoms to secure one. But very few of them self-identify as someone who badgers their doctors for antibiotics. They feel they know their own bodies, so they only ask for antibiotics when they genuinely need them. And a prescription reassures and vindicates them—it’s proof that they are genuinely ill, and that their disease is treatable.

Their understanding of antibiotic resistance is even worse. The researchers asked them about it and got blank faces in response. When probed—and here’s the bit that really shocked me—almost everyone assumed that it’s the person who becomes resistant to antibiotics, not the microbes."

*The fault, arguably, is on us—science journalists, scientists, doctors, communicators, and everyone else who’s beating the drum about this impending threat. We’re not doing it very well."

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/11/people-are-really-confused-about-antibiotic-resistant-infections/416118/