140,000+ ER Visits Due to Antibiotic Side Effects
Overuse of antibiotics is sending thousands of people to the emergency room every year, according to a newly released Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study. Around 78 percent of the adverse events in the study were allergic reactions, ranging from rash to a serious reaction known as anaphylaxis, and the remaining 22 percent were caused by errors and overdoses.
While penicillin and related antibiotics such as amoxicillin accounted for half the emergency visits, other classes of antibiotics such fluoroquinolones - the class that includes Cipro - and newer antibiotics accounted for the rest.
This was the first time a large scale study looked at antibiotic side effects in the U.S. To reach their conclusions, the authors of the study used the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System-Cooperative Adverse Drug Event Surveillance project, a sample of 63 U.S. hospitals, between 2004 and 2006. According to their survey, the hospitals recorded more than 6,600 emergency visits that were due to an adverse reaction to an antibiotics. They were able to extrapolate this to the whole country and estimated that 142,000 such emergency visits are made every year.
“This number is an important reminder for physicians and patients that antibiotics can have serious side effects and should only be taken when necessary,” said the CDC’s Dr. Daniel Budnitz, who led the study.
