Is there any medical reason for prescribing antibiotics in doses too low to kill bacteria?
Doctors would not prescribe low levels per se. The problem could arise when a patient stops taking a presciption after a few days instead of completing the full course. Also, even with clinical levels of antibiotics, portions of the body see lower levels, because the antibiotic is unevenly distributed, and this can increase risk. Who is most at risk from drug-resistant bacteria? Kids, individuals who have compromised immune systems, and the elderly. Remember that MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus), the drug-resistant strain of staph, arose in hospitals as a result of overuse of antibiotics, and now it’s escaped into the community. Should we be concerned about meat from livestock treated with antibiotics? Farmers use these lower, sublethal levels of antibiotics as a preventive, and that is concerning, because the antibiotics ramp up the mutation rate. I’m not an expert on the agriculture industry, but I have heard that farmers are seeing a rise in resistant strains. If a
