Office of Primary Care and Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) Program

W. Kemper Alston, M.D., M.P.H., professor of medicine at the Larner College of Medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Disease at the University of Vermont Medical Center

(NOVEMBER 12, 2024) W. Kemper Alston, M.D., M.P.H., professor of medicine at the Larner College of Medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Disease at the University of Vermont Medical Center, was quoted in a Public News Service article on so-called superbugs.

Medical researchers say germs are getting smarter and more of them are becoming resistant to a class of drugs designed to treat infections. This is because the overprescribing of medications designed to fight bacteria has turned some of them into “superbugs,” which cause infections that can be difficult or impossible to cure.

But often patients pressure their doctors to prescribe antibiotics when an illness may be caused by a viral or other type of infection, leading to overuse of antimicrobials.

“The problem is that a primary care doctor doesn’t have a half-hour to give a lecture on the history of antibiotics and the reasons why it is probably a viral infection and not a bacterial infection at all,” Alston pointed out. “They’re much more likely just prescribe an antibiotic and have the patient feel like something positive has been done.”

Alston stressed, “The current model is probably not sustainable, and as we’re finding in some cases, we’re running out of active drugs. Something’s got to change, either new drugs with entirely new targets that have never been exploited before, or we have to change how we use these drugs.”