Combatting the Deadly Problem of Antibiotic Overuse

While antibiotics save lives, their overuse leads to outbreaks of hard to control, and sometimes deadly bacterial infections. The most common of these is Clostridium dificil, a toxic, naturally occurring bacteria that can take hold when antibiotics knock down healthy bacteria that normally live in our gut. Epidemiologist Dr. Matthew Samore talks about his work investigating the best practices for antibiotic use in hospitals, which were incorporated into guidelines recently issued by the Center for Disease Control. He discusses what may happen if there continues to be indiscriminate use of antibiotics, and what we can do to prevent a worse case scenario.