Antibiotic resistance growing in states with high prescribing rates.

USA Today (11/13, Painter, Szabo) reports that antibiotic use in the US is declining albeit at widely varying rates and "most slowly in states that use the drugs the most," where resistance is becoming a problem, according to an analysis released by the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy. Ramanan Laxminarayan, a research director at the center said that "people in Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana took about twice as many antibiotics as people in Alaska, Hawaii, California, Oregon, and Washington in 2010." Moreover, he noted that a significant portion of the overuse is for viral illnesses that antibiotics cannot treat, such as "colds, flu and sore throats." The center also released "new data showing that urinary tract infections have became more resistant to antibiotics and that the problem is worst" in the Southeast, where use "is highest." Data indicate UTIs "were 30% more likely to resist antibiotic treatment in 2010 than in 1999," Laxminarayan noted.

        Survey: Many Americans misusing antibiotics. CQ (11/13, McGlade, Subscription Publication) reports that the results from a Pew Health Group poll released Tuesday showed that "many participants in the study's focus groups admitted to often disregarding doctors' orders to finish their whole prescriptions." Moreover, only "47 percent of respondents understood that taking unnecessary antibiotics would pose a health risk to others even though 79 percent knew that taking unneeded antibiotics could harm their own health." The poll, which was "conducted in partnership between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Pew Charitable Trusts, charted 1,004 adults' opinions from Sept. 10 through Sept. 16 about antibiotic effectiveness." The results also include "findings from interviews conducted during two focus groups meetings in Chicago on Oct. 9."

        Children's antibiotics-use research highlighted. In the New York Times (11/13) "Well" blog, Perri Klass, MD, discusses new research on antibiotics, in particular, their effect on children and the growing awareness that it's important "to use them judiciously." She cites a study published earlier this year in Pediatrics, which found that the "rate at which antibiotics were dispensed to the youngest group (3 to 24 months) had decreased 24 percent by 2008-9 from 2000-1." That decline was "largely driven by a declining rate of diagnosis of ear infections." Dr. Klass also cites a study in "last month's issue of the journal Pediatrics," which found a link between "childhood antibiotic treatment and the later development of inflammatory bowel disease," and she notes that a recentstudy in the International Journal of Obesity, found that children "treated with antibiotics when very young (under 6 months) showed increased weight gain by a year of age, and were 22 percent more likely to be overweight at age 3."