Features

Health care interests unite in antibiotic campaign

By Jennifer Coleman The Associated Press
Thursday September 28, 2000

SACRAMENTO — Doctors, health officials and drug companies are starting a statewide campaign Thursday warning patients and physicians not to overuse antibiotics. It is a concern Rebecca Strain-Kale knows all too well. 

At 3 weeks old, her son, Maxwell Kale, was rushed to the hospital with a 104-degree fever brought on by a stubborn form of E. coli. Doctors gave him an antibiotic, but nothing happened. 

Physicians drew a blood sample from him and tested 12 different types of antibiotics before they found one that worked.  

The Rocklin boy recovered, but soon had need for more antibiotics. 

At 1-1/2, Maxwell developed his second ear infection and went through four sets of the drugs, Strain-Kale says. She is worried the boy, now 2-1/2, is becoming resistant to all but the strongest antibiotics. 

“Who knows if he gets sick again, if an antibiotic someday won’t work on him,” said Strain-Kale, who warns friends against using antibiotics unless absolutely necessary and has signed up as a spokeswoman for the awareness campaign. 

The overuse of antibiotics, too often prescribed for viral infections or colds that they cannot fight, results in “super germs” impervious to most treatments, infectious-disease experts say. 

The Alliance Working for Antibiotic Resistance Education – AWARE – will kick off the education campaign at the Capitol to teach the public that antibiotics, when improperly used, can cause more harm than good. 

The campaign has three objectives, said Elissa Maas with the California Medical Association Foundation – to tell people not to request antibiotics for colds and viruses, to take the prescription until it runs out and not to use leftover antibiotics for other illnesses. 

All of these practices lead to antibiotic resistance, she said. 

“If you stop taking the antibiotics after a few days, you’ve only killed off the weak germs and left the strong ones to multiply,” she said. 

The $320,000 campaign was funded by grants from pharmaceutical companies and health plans, Maas said. AWARE plans to spread the word through presentations to child care organizations, Parent Teacher Association meetings and the AARP. Public service announcements are planned for next year. 

“It’s hard, when your kid is sick, I think people think an antibiotic is what makes you better,” Strain-Kale said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a viral infection or a bacterial infection. But there is a huge difference.” 

Patients aren’t the only ones who need a refresher course on use of the drugs. 

A 1997 Journal of the American Medical Association survey found that physicians treating adults with viruses prescribed antibiotics to more than half of their patients with colds and 66 percent of those diagnosed with bronchitis. 

Antibiotics simply don’t work on those types of infections, Maas said. 

The federal Centers for Disease Control estimates 20 to 50 percent of people taking antibiotics are doing so inappropriately. 

Dr. Dean Blumberg, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at University of California, Davis, Medical Center, said he has seen the results of antibiotic overuse. 

“We have seen children who ended up having resistant infections that don’t respond to antibiotics,” Blumberg said. 

Among them was an infant who had to be hospitalized to clear up an ear infection that resisted antibiotics. The child had to have surgery when the infection spread to the bone behind the ear. 

“We have seen children who ended up dying due to organisms that have mutated so much that they’re not responsive to any antibiotic available to us right now,” Blumberg said. “It puts us in a helpless situation.” 

New antibiotics are expensive and can take years to develop. The Food and Drug Administration is considering placing warning labels on prescriptions to alert the public to the danger of improper use. 

Dr. Arthur Lurvey, a Beverly Hills internist, said his regular patients trust him when he tells them they don’t need antibiotics for colds and viral infections. 

“If you talk to them, they’ll understand there is such a thing as antibiotic resistance,” Lurvey said. “We do need to keep the current antibiotics useful longer. We do have medications that used to be routine, that we can’t use now because they are useless.” 

——— 

On the Net: 

For more information on antibiotic use, see the Food and Drug Administration Web site at www.fda.gov or the federal Centers for Disease Control at www.cdc.gov