It's Fall, the time when many of us get bronchitis or a sinus infection. Our doctor prescribes an antibiotic and we feel better in a matter of days, thankfully.
But when we expose bacteria to antibiotics, a few survive and resistance spreads. It happens in our own bodies. It happens in hospitals. It happens in feedlots where antibiotics are overused to help animals grow larger and survive unsanitary, crowded conditions.
Now, experts at the Centers for Disease Control are sounding an alarm. If we don't get serious about reducing the overuse of antibiotics, we face the end of the antibiotic era. For those who already die each year from resistant infections, the post-antibiotic era is here.
But it isn't too late. Emergency action to reduce overuse in both medicine and agriculture can go a long way towards preserving antibiotics for human health. The top Federal administrators of programs overseeing food and health care can jump on this without waiting on Congress. Tell them to act now!
Dear [Decision Maker],
I call on Secretaries Kathleen Sebelius and Thomas Vilsak -- who oversee our nation's food and health infrastructure -- to take immediate, emergency action to save our antibiotics. This includes ending the dissemination of antibiotics to healthy food animals, and reducing overuse in medicine by holding doctors and hospitals accountable for their prescribing patterns.
Antibiotic-resistance is a real, growing problem. Infections that were easily treated with antibiotics 50 years ago can now result in serious illness and death. For thousands of victims, the post-antibiotic world is already here.
The routine feeding of antibiotics to food animals creates drug-resistant superbugs, which can spread to humans through store-bought meat and the environment. And the overuse of antibiotics in clinics and hospitals, along with poor procedures to prevent the spread of hospital-acquired infections, adds to the problem.
We can no longer hope to "invent" our way out of this crisis. The science is harder, the results less reliable. Doctors are increasingly turning back to older, more toxic drugs as the newer ones fail.
[Your comments here]
I urge you both to take immediate steps to reduce medical overuse and eliminate ALL unnecessary use in agriculture right now, before resistant strains overwhelm us. The superbugs are already here and spreading.
Sincerely,
[Your name here]
