Column: The never-ending debate over finishing your antibiotics
Some health professionals are advocating for shorter antibiotics courses, going so far as to say maybe patients should stop taking antibiotics once they feel better.
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Drug companies aren’t making new antibiotics. Is there an economic cure?
As drug-resistant infections proliferate, financial barriers are preventing the pharmaceutical industry from investing in new drugs to fight off superbugs. Economics correspondent Paul Solman, in a series of reports with science correspondent Miles O'Brien, explores how researchers could be incentivized…
Watch 8:46
The financial barrier to developing antibiotics? No big payday for drug companies
As current antibiotics begin to lose their punch, there’s an economic reality putting a damper on development. Since every use of an antibiotic drives resistance, and doctors are reluctant to use a drug until there's no alternative, why would a…
Why so many companies have stopped trying to create new antibiotics
Dr. John Rex discusses the growing concerns around antibacterial resistance and why so many companies have stopped trying to create new drugs.
Each year, superbugs -- viral bacterial infections resistant to common antibiotics -- infect more than two million Americans, killing at least 38,000. As the list of antibiotic-resistant bacteria grows, so have the extraordinary efforts to prevent the spread of infection…
The Neisseria gonorrhoeae bacteria may be developing resistance to the only two antibiotics left that can cure the sexually transmitted disease.
In 2010, farmers across the globe used more than 63, 000 tons of antibiotics annually, the study estimated.
WASHINGTON — Signaling the seriousness of the threat posed by antibiotic-resistant germs, President Barack Obama on Thursday ordered the government to create a national plan to fight them by early 2015.
The sheer amount of bacteria in and on your body weighs three to four pounds, the same weight as the human brain. But overuse of antibiotics is threatening the microbes our guts need, and possibly giving rise to modern plagues.
