GPs are being warned yet again to prescribe fewer antibiotics.

BBC News reports that GPs are once again being warned to prescribe fewer antibiotics. "The European Centre of Disease Prevention and Control has warned if trends continue it will make it harder for hospitals to carry out operations. The UK has seen rates of antibiotic resistance rise in recent years. For example, rates of E. coli infections showing signs of resistance have trebled to 12% since the turn of the century."

The phenomenon of diseases becoming resistant to the drugs used to fight them has been known since the 1950s. (See this interesting library archived report Crofton J. The MRC randomized trial of streptomycin and its legacy) Despite this, GPs have routinely, recklessly and unashamedly continued to over-prescribe antibiotics, in many cases quite inappropriately, thereby compromising the recovery chances of very ill patients, their usual excuse being that the patient insisted on having antibiotics.

We need sanctions to be taken against these doctors who are putting so many people's lives and health at risk. - Sanctions would be more effective than a 'warning'.