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Want to know why some antibiotics are no longer working and some infections are incurable?  Thank the doctors who, according to The Washington Post, are prescribing " up to three times as many antibiotics as doctors at other hospitals, putting patients at greater risk for deadly superbug infections, according to a federal study released Tuesday. Leah H. Sun at The Washington Post notes, "A bout one-third of the time, prescriptions to treat urinary tract infections and prescriptions for the drug vancomycin were given without proper testing or evaluation, or prescribed for too long, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." Why?   One reason doctors may prescribe antibiotics more often than necessary is because they want to avoid withholding a prescription from a hospitalized patient ultimately found to have a bacterial infection, which can lead to sepsis, and ultimately death, University of Michigan doctors say in a new commentary, newswise.co...

Guess who's getting 70% of the antibiotics in this country?  No, not your son's constant ear infections. Chickens. That's right. Chickens And because of that,someday you may die of an infection because antibiotic-resistant bugs have become a common form of death, according to The Washington Post. Farmers feed their chickens antibiotics to cut down on infections when the chickens are all pressed together in a tight space to grow.  They've also used them to make fowl grow bigger, though the government is making them cut back on that. But, as the AP reports, 2 million people a year develop serious infections -- and 23,000 die.  For the first time, the CDC has estimated how many people die from drug-resistant bacteria each year — about as many as those killed annually by flu. Why? Because of the growing threat of germs that are hard to treat since they’ve become resistant to drugs. "Antibiotics like penicillin and streptomycin first became widely available...

I hate to say it. You couldn't prove it by me. But the CDC says childhood obesity is dropping and they have the study to prove it. But in 18 states, there were at least slight drops in obesity for low-income preschoolers, health officials said Tuesday, according to the Associated Press. But the news may not be quite as good as it sounds.  Basically, what the CDC found that obesity rates are staying flat, just not increasing.  "However, a few places — Philadelphia, New York City and Mississippi — reported improvements in the last couple of years. But the report from the Centers for Disease and Control Prevention shows signs of wider-ranging progress," the AP reports. "Now, for the first time, we're seeing a significant decrease in childhood obesity" nationally, Dr. Thomas Frieden, CDC director, told the AP. But rates are still too high, he added. One in 8 preschoolers is obese in the United States, and it's even more common in black and Hispanic k...

First, it was obesity .  Now it's bullying .  The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has just announced that bullying is a public health problem.  I guess it still counts if it happens in your family , too. Sadly, the CDC has proposed this because of its link to suicide, according to Howard Mandel. Mandel writes that the suggestion has been made that "educators and health care professionals should consider broadening their focus beyond just providing services for those who are already involved in bullying or suicide-related behaviors, but also towards developing strategies to prevent bullying and suicidal behavior from happening in the first place." Makes sense to me.  I remember when I was in school back in the '60s and '70s, bullying went on and no one pretty much talked about it.  Kids being shaken down for their lunch money.  Being ridiculed because their teeth stuck out, or wore glasses (me).  I even had a friend with cerebral palsy who had a...

A chilling new statistic from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  Almost 20 percent of children in this country have some form of  mental illness . According to a story in today's Washington Post, between 7 and 12 million children experience a "mental disorder" every year.  That's one in five kids. And the rate is increasing, Tony Pugh reports.  Now, of course, we're not talking about all psychopaths, but children with disorders who find it hard to learn, behave and cope with their emotions.  The CDC puts that at  13 to 20% of all youths under 18. Even scarier, only 21% get treatment.  Would therapy have helped Adam Lanza?  No one will ever know.   And it's not because parents don't take their kids for help, it's that the help isn't there.  Pugh notes that a  shortage of sub-specialty pediatricians and child and adolescent psychiatrists contributes to the problem. Worse yet, fewer medical students are choo...