VCU news

By Erin Lucero
Office of Development, School of Medicine

RICHMOND, Va. – The heavy, and sometimes unnecessary, use of antibiotics has serious implications in the rise of antibiotic resistance, according to two infectious disease specialists in an editorial in the Dec. 28 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Richard P. Wenzel, M.D., chairman of internal medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University, and Michael B. Edmond, M.D., hospital epidemiologist with VCU’s Medical College of Virginia Hospitals, issued the warning in response to two lead articles in NEJM that focus on antibiotic resistance.

"The findings of these two studies have urgent policy implications that must put an end to the national complacency about antibiotic resistance," wrote the editorialists. "The antibiotic era is barely 60 years old, yet the inappropriate use of these drugs threatens our ability to cope with infections."

The editorialists note that each year in the United States, 160 million prescriptions are written for antibiotics and 25,000 tons of antibiotics are prescribed, half for use by patients and half in animals, agriculture, and aquaculture. Wenzel and Edmond estimate that half of those prescriptions are inappropriate. "This enormous use of antibiotics has great potential for selecting for or enhancing the growth of antibiotic resistant strains."

In the editorial, Wenzel and Edmond endorse the World Health Organization’s recommendation for an international surveillance system for resistant strains. They go on to advise the WHO to expand that surveillance, offer new approaches for educating physician prescribers and create incentives for industry to develop rapid diagnostic tests.

They editorialists also encourage a wider use of the pneumococcal vaccine for targeted groups of people in response to reports that vaccination would protect against 80 percent to 90 percent of the infection strains.

Wenzel and Edmond head the Surveillance and Control of Pathogens of Epidemiologic Importance network. The SCOPE network is a unique non-federal surveillance system, consisting of 50 U.S. hospitals that since 1994 have tracked rates of antibiotic resistance and the bacteria that cause bloodstream infections.

VCU is listed among the top research universities in the country by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. More than 23,800 students are enrolled in 136 degree programs on VCU’s Academic and Medical campuses. Several of the university’s programs have been ranked nationally by U.S. News & World Report. The largest medical center in the state, MCV Hospitals is the teaching hospital of VCU and a Level I Trauma Center.