CDC Report: Antibiotic-Resistant Infections Caused 23,000 Deaths - East Idaho News

CDC Report: Antibiotic-Resistant Infections Caused 23,000 Deaths

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Getty 091613 LabWork?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1379356982997Nicolas Loran / Getty Images(NEW YORK) —  At least two million Americans fall ill from antibiotic-resistant bacteria every year, according to Federal Health Officials.

This is the first time that federal authorities assessed the effects of organisms that antibiotics are incapable of fighting.

Dr. Stuart Levy, a professor of microbiology at Tufts University and the president of the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics told the New York Times, “they have come up with hard numbers where it has been only guesswork.”

He continues, “This sets a baseline we can all believe in.”

Infection disease doctors have cautioned that antibiotic resistance threatens to return to society to a time when people died from ordinary infections.

The 114-page report divides the pathogens into different levels of urgency to focus public attention on the most dangerous. The most lethal type is known by its initials CRE, and has become resistant to nearly all antibiotics on the market.

Additionally, the report claims that the industrial-scale animal farming contributes to the problem of antibiotic-resistant infections in humans. The government estimates that more than 70 percent of antibiotics are given to animals in order to prevent sickness and infection, adding that it is “unnecessary and inappropriate and makes everyone less safe.”

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