This Infection is Resistant to Everything We Have’

Those are not words any patient wants to hear. But a surgeon at The Johns Hopkins Hospital tells U.S. PIRG Education Fund that he and other doctors are being forced to deliver that message. He points to the overuse of antibiotics in agriculture as a major culprit.

Those are not words any patient wants to hear.

But a surgeon at The Johns Hopkins Hospital tells U.S. PIRG Education Fund (our national network’s research and public education arm) that he and other doctors are being forced to deliver that message. He points to the overuse of antibiotics in agriculture as a major culprit.

“We doctors did a very good job trying to educate the public about smoking. We took this on as a profession,” said Dr. Marty Makary, in a video interview. “We, as a profession, should take on the cause of not using antibiotics routinely in agriculture.”

Dr. Makary estimates about 20 percent of all antimicrobial-resistant infections that doctors and other health professionals see in the hospital probably originated from antibiotic overuse on farms and ranches.

The video featuring Dr. Makary is the second in a series produced by U.S. PIRG Education Fund as part of our Health Professional Action Network project.

Check out the new video on Twitter here.

Photo Credit: Staff

Topics
Find Out More