Below are eight recent stories on antibiotics and antibiotic resistance, starting with the most recent.
1. Conventional approaches to treating bacterial infections frequently involve using large doses of a common antibiotic drug, but a new study found that using a sequence of drugs may be more effective.
2. Recent guidelines suggest patients who have experienced sinusitits symptoms for 10 days or more should then wait another seven days — for a total of 17 days — to allow the infection to go away on its own. Only after that time should antibiotic therapy be used.
3. A recent study revealed that, while there are various types of antibiotics available for patients hospitalized with pneumonia, it turns out the common antibiotics are just as effective as the more expensive alternatives.
4. The White House developed a plan to slow the growth of antibiotic resistance over the next five years, and it requires changes from hospitals, physicians and others across industries.
5. Recent research showed that chlorine, which is commonly used by treatment plants to disinfect sewage, may not completely eliminate pharmaceuticals from waste, contributing to antibiotic resistance.
6. Huggins Hospital in Wolfeboro, N.H., partnered with a local farm to provide patients, employees and visitors more healthy food options, including local beef that is free of added hormones and systematic antibiotics.
7. Researchers at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute found two antibiotics commonly prescribed for cellulitis have similar cure rates for uncomplicated infections in outpatients.
8. McDonald's Corp. announced it plans to curb the use of chickens that have been treated with antibiotics deemed important to human health and medicine over the next two years in U.S. restaurants.