Pediatricians write millions of unnecessary prescriptions

Misuse of drugs could lead to resistance later in life: Study

NEW YORK - Pediatricians write more than 10 million unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions - for conditions like the flu and asthma - every year, suggests a new study.

Those ailments, and others not caused by bacteria, don't respond to the drugs. But misuse of antibiotics contributes to drug resistance - so those same medications might not work in the future when they're really needed.

"Antibiotics are wonderful. There are times you really need them, the question is just being judicious about when we use them," said Betsy Foxman, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan School of Public Health in Ann Arbor, who was not involved in the research.

The new study involved a nationally representative sample of almost 65,000 outpatient visits by children in 2006 through 2008. Using medical codes, researchers were able to determine the type of diagnosis they were given, as well as what kind of drugs, if any, they were prescribed.

In total, doctors prescribed an antibiotic at one in every five visits. Most prescriptions were given out for children with respiratory ailments, including sinus infections and pneumonia.

Some of those infections are caused by bacteria, and antibiotics are warranted. But almost one-quarter of all antibiotic prescriptions were given to children with respiratory conditions that probably or definitely do not call for antibiotics - such as bronchitis, the flu, asthma and allergies.

That translates to more than 10 million antibiotic prescriptions each year that likely won't do any good but might do harm, Adam Hersh of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and his colleagues reported in the journal Pediatrics.

Half of all antibiotics prescribed were "broad-spectrum" drugs - meaning they act against a wide range of bacteria. Those "kill more of the good bacteria in our bodies and can set the child up for infections with antibiotic resistant bacteria down the road," Hersh said.

"In many of these instances antibiotics are not indicated at all," he added.

Broad-spectrum antibiotics include macrolides and certain types of cephalosporins and penicillins.

Foxman said that wiping out the non-harmful bacteria in the intestines has been linked to asthma and, recently, to obesity.

"We think of antibiotics as being wholly beneficial, but they are not very specific, they hit everything in your body," she said. "By making our microbes that are supposed to be with us disappear, we can be causing other health problems we don't know about."

Reuters