Antibiotic-Resistant Superbugs Could Become A Bigger Killer Than Cancer

By Mac Slavo: Antibiotic resistance is becoming a larger problem in developed parts of the world such as the United States.  The overuse of antibiotics has caused a sort of evolution effect to occur in certain types of bacteria.  They have become much harder to kill with antibiotics, evolving into what’s been dubbed “superbugs.”
The Daily Mail reported that in little more than 30 years, antibiotic-resistance may be more deadly than cancer around the globe.  At least 23,000 people in the US die of an antibiotic-resistant infection each year – and some estimates suggest it’s far more.
By 2050, some projections suggest that drug resistance, in general, will claim the lives of 10 million people. That’s more than the 8.2 million that die of cancer worldwide each year.
Superbugs or bacteria that has mutated and evolved to withstand modern medicine (antibiotics) are a growing threat worldwide. Their ever-increasing numbers are fueled by over-prescription, waste from drug manufacturing plants, antibiotic use in animals, and even international travel.
But don’t expect Big Pharma or the government to reign it in. There’s just too much money in drugs for either entity to care much about it.  We’ll have to take action as a society on our own. The first step you can take is to make sure you understand what an antibiotic is for and what it cannot do. Antibiotics cannot fight viral infections such as the common cold or the flu. Talk with a doctor and get an understanding of what it is you’re fighting. Never take antibiotics for a viral infection.

The symptoms of viral and bacterial infections are often difficult to distinguish from one another, and patients – especially the parents of pediatric patients – hate being told to go home empty-handed.

So doctors began to prescribe ‘harmless’ antibiotics to anyone with symptoms like a runny nose, a fever, and a headache, which could be caused either by a mild bacterial infection or a viral one like the common cold. –Daily Mail

Most doctors are seeing more resistant infections every day, forcing them to resort to more powerful drugs of last resort or simply to lose patients, the Daily Mail reports. “You can still walk into pharmacies around the world and buy antibiotics, including colistin,” a powerful broad-spectrum drug with dangerous side effects that is sometimes used to treat resistant infections, says Dr. Jason Newland, a Washington University St Louis pediatrician, and antimicrobial stewardship specialist. “It’s one of the major drivers [of antibiotic resistance], that if you want an antibiotic, you could go to India right now and buy it and use it inappropriately,” said Newland.
The rise of superbugs is not unprecedented, however, it shouldn’t be overlooked either. Keeping yourself healthy through good nutrition and exercise just might be the simple short term answer.  But evaluation of medical and prescription drug procedures should occur as well if any useful correction to this problem is to made.

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