RT Journal
A1 Spellberg B
T1 The antibiotic crisis: Can we reverse 65 years of failed stewardship?: comment on “decreased antibiotic utilization after implementation of a guideline for inpatient cellulitis and cutaneous abscess”
JF Archives of Internal Medicine
JO Archives of Internal Medicine
YR 2011
FD June 27
VO 171
IS 12
SP 1080
OP 1081
DO 10.1001/archinternmed.2011.26
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archinternmed.2011.26
AB 
A recent workshop, cosponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the US Food and Drug Administration, and the Infectious Diseases Society of America, focused on the causes of and potential solutions to the antibiotic resistance crisis.4 As emphasized at the workshop, calls to enhance desperately needed new antibiotic development5 must be matched with more effective stewardship efforts to prolong the useful lives of available antibiotics. Unfortunately, it's easy to say we need to promote judicious use of antibiotics, but it's hard to do. Warnings not to abuse antibiotics date back to Sir Alexander Fleming (discoverer of penicillin) himself, as early as 1945.6 If we want current antibiotic stewardship efforts to be more effective than the previous 65 years of failed discourse, more is needed than just nagging by key opinion leaders. Through active investigation, we must identify and develop new ways to promote effective antibiotic stewardship, for example, by use of rapid molecular diagnostics5 or quality-based clinical pathways.