The Growing Threat Doctors and Patients Are Creating

Since we’ve yet to legislate or innovate our way out of this “urgent threat,” patients must speak up.

The technology used to identify bacterial strains and whether they'll respond to antibiotics is a century old. Shutterstock

The statistics on antibiotic use are jarring. Five prescriptions written each year for every six people in the United States. One-third of those antibiotics not needed at all.

Overuse of antibiotics has been a top concern for decades, and public health officials say the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is picking up speed. More than 2.8 million antibiotic-resistant infections occur in the United States annually, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of those, about 35,000 people die.