Children’s Hospitals Are Partly to Blame as Superbugs Increasingly Attack Kids

Antibiotic misuse remains widespread and now threatens to make antibiotics useless as germs develop resistance

Christina Fuhrman contracted C. diff in 2012, and her daughter Pearl contracted it in 2015. C. diff, a bacterium causing diarrhea and colitis, is a superbug fueled by the overuse of antibiotics. Matthew Matlock

A memory haunts Christina Fuhrman: the image of her toddler Pearl lying pale and listless in a hospital bed, tethered to an IV to keep her hydrated as she struggled against a superbug infection.

“She survived by the grace of God,” Fuhrman said of her eldest child in this central Missouri city almost five years ago. “She could’ve gone septic fast. Her condition was near critical.”