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http://www.nytimes.com)
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported Monday that at least two million Americans fall ill from antibiotic-resistant bacteria every year and that at least 23,000 die from those infections, putting a hard number on a growing public health threat.
The number of deaths they reported is significantly lower than other estimates, because they excluded cases where antibiotic resistant infection wasn't necessarily the cause of death. Doctors warn that increasing antibiotic resistance in bacteria could make regular infections lethal.
Dr. Steven Solomon, director of the CDC's office of antimicrobial resistance, acknowledged that the numbers were deliberately underestimated. "This is a floor," he said. "We wanted the cleanest number, the least subjective number."
Much of the growing antibiotic resistance has been attributed to the factory farming practice of feeding antibiotics to animals packed in crowded, unsanitary conditions to prevent disease and force them to grow unnaturally fast. The report also says that about half the antibiotics used in humans are unnecessary, adding to the problem.
The report was based on data from five disease-tracking systems and number of deaths was based on mathematical models.
