equently overused. From the perspective of the pharmaceutical companies, both the obsolescence and overuse scenarios are not economically desirable. Since, in most of the industrialized nations, the bulk of the development and marketing of new drugs is left to private enterprise, this ambiguity will continue to exist. On the other hand, regulators could make it less expensive to bring a new drug to market, or the government could underwrite some of the costs of this development. As a result, this would diminish the underlying reasons for this ambiguity, which is driven by the need to recoup investment and make a profit for shareholders.All of this leads to the conclusion, that there is overuse and even abuse of antibiotics. Awareness and knowledge among patients and physicians are the most important steps in ending this abuse. People must be made to recognize that most bacteria are natural and useful. In fact, bacteria often protect us from disease, because they compete with and limit the proliferation of pathogenic bacteria. People should also be made aware of the fact that although antibiotics are needed to control bacterial infections they can have undesirable effects on total microbial ecology (2). They produce long-lasting change in the kinds and proportions of various bacteria- both in the antibiotic-resistant and antibiotic-susceptible kinds. This is true not only in the specific individual being treated but in the environment and society as well. Antibiotics should be used only when they are needed and should not be administered for suspected viral infections.Knowledge is a powerful thing; therefore, if I know the limitations of antibiotics I would not request them if they had no application to my illness. After all, being sick and having a bacterial infection is not one and the same thing. I would certainly forego therapy that had no possible application to my specific illness.As to the issue of a waiting period be...
