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Letters to Editor


Nature Medicine 5, 358 (1999)
doi:10.1038/7328

Antibiotic resistance—to treat...

Sally Blower1, Katia Koelle1 & Tom Lietman2

  1. Departments of Medicine, and Microbiology and Immunology, University of California San Francisco, Box 0414, San Francisco, CA 94143
    e-mail: sally@itsa.ucsf.edu
    http://itsa.ucsf.edu/~Sally
  2. Department of Ophthalmology, and F.I. Proctor Foundation, University of California San Francisco, Box 0944, San Francisco, CA 94143

To the editor—The medical community has been criticized frequently for contributing to a pandemic of antibiotic resistance by overprescribing antibiotics, and reduced antibiotic use has been suggested as one solution to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance1. However, it is important to note that reducing treatment rates is not a viable option for many infections that, if left untreated, have serious morbidity effects and high fatality rates.