Millions of Unneeded Antibiotics Are Prescribed to Kids Every Year [OPINION]

My wife and I don’t fight over money. Nor time spent with each other. Nobody is cheating, over drinking or abusing in any way. But there is one thing that drives me crazy…over medicating our son. With out going into too much detail it just seems that every day, yes, every day of his short 3 years has included some sort of medication and it drives me crazy. In my day, walk it off, let the air at it…drink some orange juice and get a good night sleep were common. Now a new study from researchers at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City found that pediatricians write more than 10 million prescriptions for unnecessary antibiotics every year.

I showed this picture of what is given to our son regularly to our pediatrician and she looked at me like I was insane…When I complain, I lose the battle. Well, In the two-year study, 65,000 kids were profiled to determine the type of diagnosis they were given during doctor’s visits as well as the type of of drugs, if any, they were prescribed. The research revealed doctors prescribed antibiotics during one of every five visits.

While some of those drugs were appropriately prescribed for bacterial infections, almost 25 percent were given to kids with respiratory conditions that typically aren’t helped by antibiotics, such as bronchitis, the flu, asthma and allergies.

Dr. Adam Hersh, a researcher attached to the study, said some of those antibiotics “kill more of the good bacteria in our bodies and can set the child up for infections with antibiotic resistant bacteria down the road,” and doctors may prescribe them because a diagnosis is murky. “The decision is made to prescribe an antibiotic… just ‘to be on the safe side,’” he said.

I feel vindicated.