Antibiotic resistance estimated to cost $20 billion a year

Antibiotic-resistant infections cost patients, their families, and the U.S. healthcare system $20 billion a year, according to a new study. The researchers estimated that there were 900,000 such infections nationwide in 2000, extrapolated from the infections seen in one Chicago hospital. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria develop in response to the overuse of antibiotics in both human medicine and food animal production. Read an article about the study, or read the study abstract in Clinical Infectious Diseases.