It seems that the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy (specifically a program known as “Extending the Cure” or ETC) has found a 30% decrease in effectiveness of antibiotics used to trate urinary tract infections, i.e., UTI. In short, more and more bacteria that cause UTIs are resistant to antibiotics. Guess where most of these drug resistant cases are occurring.
Done guessing? Okay then, here’s your answer:
Using ETC’s tool, ResistanceMap, an interactive map of antibiotic use and effectiveness in the U.S., researchers were able to track infections between 1999 and 2010 and found that the overall effectiveness of the drugs prescribed to treat UTIs declined by 30 percent.
According to a news release from ETC, the highest rates of the new drug-resistant UTIs are in the Southeast, while rates are lowest in New England and the Pacific states.
It doesn’t take analysis to note that the New England and the Pacific Northwest are solidly blue states, and as we all know, with the occasional exception of Florida, the Southeast is solidly red. Now some of you may be thinking, so what? Well, if you are a woman, particularly a sexually active woman, you fall into the category most susceptible to urinary tract infections, which just happen to be the second most common infectious disease in the United States. The primary cause of the increased incidence of drug resistance is overuse of antibiotics.
Researchers found staggering geographic variation — residents of Appalachian and Gulf Coast states, where antibiotic use rates are highest, take about twice as many antibiotics per capita as people living in Western states. […]
“While nationally, people are starting to use antibiotics more judiciously, the new findings also show the message might not be reaching everyone. People continue to consume antibiotics at much higher rates in certain parts of the country, and the problem appears to be getting worse,” said Laxminarayan. “We’re hoping public health officials and health care leaders will be able to use ResistanceMap and the Drug Resistance Index to better target their education efforts to reduce inappropriate use.”
High antibiotic use rates could reflect cultural norms in certain regions where consumers demand antibiotics – and physicians prescribe them – even when they aren’t needed. Patients in remote areas may desire antibiotics for a cold or the flu, viruses which can’t be treated with an antibiotic, because they have infrequent access to their doctor and want to make sure they get a “cure” on their visit. However, additional research must be done to better understand the driving factors behind antibiotic use.
Perhaps a little basic education on the “theory” of evolution could come in handy for those people who insist on taking antibiotics every time they get sick. Overuse of antibiotics usage does lead to mutations of bacteria caused by natural selection. However, if you don’t know much about biology, you just might as well think such medications are miracle pills, and as we have learned the hard way, ignorance about science can be dangerous to your health.
Want to really confuse them?
Most of the genes in your body aren’t even carrying your DNA.
Consuming antibiotics does not just come through prescriptions. Meat animals are hopped up on antibiotics. So one would expect areas of higher-than-average consumption of meat—and the Southeast is one of these areas–to have more antibiotic resistance.
What is interesting about the data is that this is the case in an area with major problems in healthcare access. Which means that the issue might be more serious that the data first suggests. Plus, there are likely folks in rural areas self-medicating with veterinary antibiotics, which tend to be cheaper (and less effective).
Evolution scepticism has little to do with it.
But the repressive anti-sex public attitudes do.
If you want to see the extent of the moralistic problem, check out the incidence of STDs by state.
And it’s not just ignorant white folk who are getting these diseases.
THDem beat me to the punch on this. There are a lot of different possible reasons why UTI rates and antibiotic use could be higher in the Southeast, and most of them don’t have much if anything to do with either people’s religious beliefs or their alleged ignorance or stupidity. (And the segment of the population using antibiotics most heavily may not be the same segment that disavows evolution, anyway.)
But you just had to go there. As well as turning it into a red state/blue state thing, you had to insult an entire region of the country for reasons that are, at best, very tenuously linked to the story at hand.
Of course, the CDC is based in the Southeast, too. So maybe they’re the idiots, and the data underlying your entire post is wrong. See how easy that is?
Sorry, but this post strikes me as pretty bigoted. Maybe I’m just feeling cranky this morning. But it does make me appreciate why a lot of red state residents hate “libruls.” The condescension they often sense is quite real.
Excellent point about the meat industry.
This is just one of a myriad of ways in which widespread antipathy to scientific findings hurts the South (and areas outside the South where such attitudes are prevalent) and drags the rest of us into less than optimal lives. Those drug resistant bacteria are not going to stay in the South, and will eventually threaten those of us who do not overuse antibiotics. But look at all the ways in which anti-science views hurt us all: We can’t do anything meaningful about climate change. Large numbers of our children are mis-educated so they are not prepared to take up scientific careers. On the liberal side, false beliefs about vaccinations are causing children to die needlessly of whooping cough. The list goes on and on. Sometimes it feels like we’re trapped in an Iron Age world of shamans and demons and magic spells.
I have no idea how to get through to our misguided fellow citizens except to wait for the inevitable disconfirmation by reality of many of these beliefs, as may (finally!) be happening with global warming.
As a resident of the red South, here are some personal observations about women and medical care and antibiotics.
As primary caregiver for my Mom who spent 6 years in a nursing home, and now with our MIL who’s in an assisted living facility (both with dementia, UTI infections are the first diagnosis when the patient’s behavior changes. Even when a test for it is not practicably doable. Cannot tell you how frequently my Mom was given an antibiotic for a UTI during those 6 years. Now that’s happening with my MIL.
I’ve observed in my interactions with doctors their almost total reliance on antibiotics for every possible ailment. Sitting in waiting rooms over the last few years, in almost every instance I’ve seen at least one pharmaceutical rep walk in and get admitted to the inner sanctum. Many times they provide lunch for the staff. Aside from their use in the meat packing and poultry industries, is it any wonder that so many infections have become resistant to antibiotics?
Frankly, I don’t blame the consumer, I blame the medical profession, because aside from pharmaceutical company goodies, prescribing antibiotics gets the patient out of the doctor’s office much faster. Doctors have habituated their patient base to them.
This equates to the housing meme that just won’t go away. Blaming poor people for buying homes they “knew” they couldn’t afford and therefore poor people caused the housing crisis. It wasn’t about greed, was it?
I love the way they put the blame on buyers that “knew they couldn’t afford”. What about the builders, real estate agenta, and most of all the BANKS, all of whom should have known better as professionals than the buyers who were (for the most part) not.
Did not banks have a fiduciary responsibility to their depositors and share holders to not lend money to people who could not afford the the payments? And please do not blame the Community Reinvestment Act. That had nothing in it requiring dodgy loans.
Don’t forget that the South also has an extraordinarily high rate of hysterectomy. IMHO, more evidence of male chauvinism. As one Southern doctor told my wife thirty years ago, “You don’t use it anymore, so why do you want to keep it?” She still has it, and the doctor didn’t care much for her counter-question about castration.