NovamoxinWIKIMEDIA COMMONS, BMRAMON
Though rates of antibiotic use across the United States have been decreasing, people in Southeast regions of the country take about twice as many antibiotics as residents of the Northwest, according to a new analysis that tracked use of the drugs from 1999 to 2007. West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Alabama were the five states with the highest antibiotic use, while Alaska, Oregon, California, and Washington had the lowest use rates. As a whole, the United States had a lower combined resistance score—meaning antibiotic-resistant pathogens are less of a problem—than some countries in Eastern and Southern Europe, but had a higher score than many Nordic countries and European powers, such as the UK and Germany.
While overall antibiotic use in the United States dropped ...
