The mentality that every problem can be dealt with a pill or a payment seems to lead to more problems than solved solutions. We need to stop searching for the easy or politically correct answers and begin looking for the best answers.

Thank you so much for your input!

Antibiotics most definitely should NOT be banned. As Dr. T noted, they are among the most powerful (if not THE most powerful) methods we humans have yet developed to improve our health. To suggest a complete ban on antibiotics (even if just in an attention grabbing headline) is a hugely flawed policy.

However, there does seem to be an increasing overuse of antibiotics, particularly in situations where you don’t really NEED antibiotics. (Any product that proudly proclaims itself as antibacterial or ‘killing 99.9% of germs’, for example; as Early Retirement Extreme noted, that just leaves 0.1% of the germs, typically the hardest to kill 0.1%, pissed off and looking to avenge their fallen comrades.) That’s not even getting into how patients end up getting antibiotics for viral infections simply by refusing to leave until they did; all that’ll do is possibly make you feel better via the placebo effect while helping to make sure that the bacteria inside you start to build up an immunity.

Now, if we’re saying ‘ban antibiotic laced household products and encourage doctors and patients to use antibiotics as a last resort whenever possible, and then only for bacterial infections, being sure that the patient takes all the antibiotics to minimize the number of resistant bacteria around’, then I’m all for it. Although, that’s not exactly the catchiest slogan around…
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You raise intelligent points. No doubt antibiotics have saved millions, but how many have they killed or will kill? A complete ban may well be an extreme over-reaction but so would blind acceptance. In all fairness the problem does not lay with the physicians alone, parents that fail to follow the doctors instruction may have a greater impact.

Ultimately whether we prescribe correctly and administer correctly we still face the same problem. Bugs will adapt to the antibiotics introduced. We will continue to face the potential of a superbug.

Only two things have saved more lives than antibiotics: clean water supplies and vaccinations. The idea that we should ban antibiotics because some physicians err when prescribing them is equivalent to the idea that we should ban automobiles because some drivers err when traveling.

The development of antibiotic-resistant organisms began immediately after the earliest antibiotics (penicillin and sulfa drugs) were used. An old medicine textbook describes how Staphylococcus aureus developed resistance to penicillin. That text could be used today just by substituting methicillin for penicillin. Sensationalists labeled it a Super Bug: Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA). [Sounds scary, doesn't it?] There’s nothing especially super about MRSA, and pharmaceutical companies developed entire new classes of antibiotics to combat it. If MRSA is such a bad super bug, why is it that most of us don’t know anyone who died from it? I worked at a large VA hospital for over four years, and MRSA was associated with (and not the primary cause of) fewer than five deaths per year.

Yes, physicians should be less cavalier about prescribing antibiotics. But, please don’t think that banning antibiotics will improve our health. Millions of people alive today would have died without antibiotic treatments.

Antibiotics are everywhere, even if you don’t choose to take it for an infection (scarily enough!). They’re in your beef because farmers give their cows antibiotics so that their udders don’t get infected etc.

I think most doctors nowadays are trained to know that “not all bugs need drugs” and they are hesitant to prescribe antibiotics (often the course is not finished completely which adds to the resistance).
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Allergy is another case in point. I was allergic to pretty much everything as a kid. This meant either drugs and inhalers or staying away from everything. My parents chose the latter. As I grew older, I was able to tolerate more and more and today I am almost allergy free. Conversely, I know people who took the drug approach and their allergies keep getting worse and worse which leads to more and more drugs and so on.