Basically, it's exactly the worst thing you can possibly do, with regards to what the theory of evolution by natural selection tells us. Then add in what we know about bacteria exchanging genetic material, and it's like we're trying to inactivate all of our antibiotics on purpose.

from the half-full glass POV we are just speeding up the natural selection of bacteria resistant humans (it has been going for millenia and got, probably only temporary, delayed for the last 80 years). Also, as a side effect, it can help solve (at least temporarily) the overpopulation issue until the much more smart (wrt. health and Earth resources usage) humans evolve. Basic dialectics at work.

Often, what's good for species evolution is really bad for some individuals. What good is a half-full glass to you if you're dead?

Also, as was noted elsewhere in the discussions, evolutionary pressure for bacteria to attain an immunity is high, but pressure to lose one is usually much lower. However, bacteria are small, and such pressure is higher than in more complex celled creatures. "Shelving" antibiotics does work, but would require widespread cooperation and the curbing of feeding antibiotics to livestock.

What bad is it if you're dead?

Bacteria evolves resistance at about the same rate as people develop defenses.

So yeah, if you don't mind killing off a huge segment of the population and having women die in childbirth regularly.

Bahaha that's one way to look at it. I guess we have plenty of humans to spare.

No, they fucking aren't, especially when it comes to medicine. Antibiotics should be controlled like opiates; at least over-prescription of opiates doesn't endanger the whole species.

> What surprises me is with the levels of litigation against doctors, this hasn't seemed to trigger any change in behaviour.

Try fines - that's supposedly solved the opiate abuse problem.

Disclosure: I live with a doctor.

Irrelevant aside: Rare to find someone on HN call a disclosure a disclosure, rather than the oft-abused "disclaimer"! :)

The _crux_ of the issue is that doctors prescribe antibiotics for viral infections because the diagnosis is usually only based on a cursory examination. Their time is expensive, and you can't spend an hour on every patient with a cough and a fever. Furthermore, viral infections often precede or are concurrent with bacterial infections. So doctors are making a rational decision when prescribing antibiotics, and it's not even clear that this decision is globally suboptimal because bacterial infections are not uncommon with a cold or especially a flu.

If we're serious about overprescription of antibiotics, we should be heavily investing in improved diagnostic equipment and processes. For example, rapidly scanning mucus samples for viral and bacterial markers. The fact that we don't appear to be doing this suggests that either overprescription isn't actually a problem, or that we're not thinking seriously about the problem.

In the past, doctors heavily over-prescribed antibiotics. Often as a precaution. The government and health providers have become very aware of an upcoming problem with high restistance though, so they are working hard to change the behaviour.

Existing doctors are re-educated not to prescribe Antibiotics on a hunch, with monitoring and reprimands from health providers.

And this is also drilled into med students in University.

Change always takes time... let's hope we won't be too late to avoid a serious increase in fatalities.