1.The article Antibiotic overuse threatens modern medicine presents the argument that unnecessary use and over prescription of antibiotics presents a problem for the future of health care. Antibiotics are a necessary element in creating successful outcomes for various serious procedures and, with overuse, the ability to be assured of those outcomes is threatened. These procedures, including hip replacements, chemotherapy and organ transplant will eventually become impossible to treat if those in the health care field continue to overuse and over-prescribe antibiotics.
2.The article is pitched to an audience that has more than a general awareness about the healthcare system and antibiotic usage. The article addresses a well-educated base of individuals and in fact, seems largely intended for medical practitioners themselves. The usage of latin terminology to describe existing strains of antibiotic resistant illnesses suggests, at minimum, a greater-than-layperson sophistication in the field of medicine.
As an individual who has a significant amount of information about antibiotic usage and abuses, I am part of the authors’ intended audience. I do not, however, appreciate the fact that they take their audience for granted in making the assumption that their audience has enough of a general breadth of knowledge to understand the argument they employ. In failing to elaborate on specific points and in failing to define specific terms they lose the audience of individuals who are not educated about antibiotic usage and abuses. Ironically, it is the lack of comprehension on the part of these same individuals that seems to be one of the fundamental problems described in the argument.
3.The article’s primary purpose is to alter both the conduct of medical practitioners as well as that of the public. It does not present counterarguments nor does it seek to offer some acceptable compromise between two countervailing views. It fails to even present any explanations for the behavior in question, and thus fails to anticipate its own criticism. For example, prescription of strong antibiotics may be occurring as a manifestation of defensive medicine; The fear of lawsuits may be a factor in some doctors’ practice of what the authors would consider bad medicine. The article suggests that the use of strong antibiotics should be reserved to vitally necessary treatments. The article suggests that there is no middle ground. It aims at challenging convictions and changing the conduct around the use of and prescription of antibiotics.
If convictions are a set of beliefs that an individual adopts and abides by then the article seeks to change the convictions of those many individuals that believe a prescription of antibiotics is the best way to handle their or their children’s ailment. Not only does the article seek to challenge those convictions, but also, as a consequence of altering those convictions, seeks to modify the behavior of those individuals seeking antibiotics unnecessarily. In addition to changing the conduct of antibiotic-seeking individuals, the article also seeks to change the conduct of doctors who prescribe the antibiotics at the persuasion of these patients. The fundamental concern of the article is to challenge the assumptions the public has about “wonder” drugs and the medical treatment we seek. In challenging those assumptions the article informs the general public that being prudent and informed about our individual health care will not only serve ourselves, but will also serve the greater public health by extending the span of usefulness of existing antibiotics for many years. Yet by speaking in terms unavailable to the general public it fails to provide a space where the general public might find more awareness about this important issue. Reuters ends up addressing those who already have a familiarity with the concerns associated with overusing antibiotics, but not necessarily one of the audiences whose behavior it is attempting to change.
What’s at stake in this article is the welfare of vast numbers of people and the healthcare system itself. If people keep demanding antibiotics for unnecessary illnesses and doctors keep prescribing them under the persuasion of their patients we will eventually be unable to render the high percentage of successful medical outcomes to which we have become accustomed. If overuse and over prescription render antibiotics ineffective it will not only contribute to a decline in our longevity but it will also stress our healthcare system to the point where the cost to treat individuals will be so high, and the need for treatment so dire, as to possibly result in an utterly failed healthcare system.
4. The thesis of the argument is that “the "whole span of modern medicine" is under threat because bugs are become resistant to antibiotics, rendering the drugs useless”(www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5A927820091110).
5.The numbers of deaths resulting in previously treatable “Staphyloccus aureus,” which, in at least one strain, is now resistant to multiple antibiotics, and causes 19,000 deaths in the US alone is the article’s primary source of evidence. The arguments also cites “Sarah Earnshaw of the ECDC's communications unit, [who] pointed to a 2002 survey that showed 60 percent of patients do not know that antibiotics do not work against viruses like flu and colds.” However, the article doesn’t address why 60 percent of patients are not aware of this fact. Nor does the article address the how to better reach this portion of the population – it only suggests that there is to be an “antibiotic awareness” campaign that will instruct doctors not to prescribe unnecessary antibiotics. This doesn’t address the 60 percent of the population that might be less likely to seek antibiotics if they knew when the use of antibiotics was appropriate and useful.
Perhaps the brevity of the article renders it unable to define its terms, address certain implications, or dive further into the discussion of antibiotic overuse and over prescription. However, without doing a more generally available analysis of the overuse of antibiotics the article fails to reach some of very people who might be able to benefit from an article of this type – the 60 percent of individuals who don’t know when it’s best to seek antibiotics, and when it’s best to refrain from using them.
7. While the language of the article is pretty straightforward, it does depend on a general awareness of the function of antibiotics. This assumed general awareness comes through in the article’s lack of description about the additional appropriate uses of antibiotics. By limiting the set of appropriate conditions to those mentioned (neo-natal care, intensive care, cancer chemotherapy, hip replacements, organ transplants where, as the article states “antibiotics are needed in all these treatments to prevent bacterial infection” (www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5A927820091110)) the article leaves the reader more confused as to the appropriate use of antibiotics. Additional appropriate uses such as in the treatment of sinus infections, strep throat, bladder infections, and so on are not mentioned or noted as cases in which antibiotics are useful. Without a clear and full set of appropriate uses, or some rule of thumb to guide them, the uninformed reader is left more confused about antibiotic usage than when they began the article.
The article also addresses “methicillin-resistant Staphyloccus aureus (MRSA)” as a superbug without defining what it is, why it’s resistant to treatment with antibiotics, or how it might be contracted. It then follows up with staggering numbers about who it kills where by saying that “such infections kill about 25,000 people a year in Europe and around 19,000 in the United States”. The article, which could be a vehicle delivering greater understanding to those who need it most, fails to inform the reader about what this infection is, who it infects, the conditions under which it is likely to infect, or how it became resistant (www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5A927820091110).
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