Parents Report 'Sharing' Leftover Antibiotics Nearly half of those surveyed diverted, rather than disposed of, unused prescription meds

Parents said they often saved leftover antibiotics and gave them to other people, both within and outside the family, according to researchers here. In an anonymous online questionnaire distributed to a national sample of 496 parents through Amazon Mechanical Turk, nearly half (48.2%) of the parents reported that they'd kept leftover antibiotics rather than properly disposing of them, reported Ruth Milanaik, DO, of Cohen Children's Medical Center, Northwell Health in Lake Success, New York, and colleagues. Of those, 73% said they subsequently diverted the medications to siblings, unrelated children, and unrelated adults, all without physician consultation. Parents also said they used the leftover antibiotics themselves, the authors stated in a presentation at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) annual meeting. "This is a dangerous practice," Milanaik said at an AAP press conference. "As we have gotten smarter about development of antibiotics, our microbes have gotten smarter as well. They have learned from every mistake we have ever made, and from every shortened course of antibiotics." "We, as clinicians, need to do a better job of telling our patients that proper disposal of antibiotics is a really important practice," she added. https://www.medpagetoday.com/meetingcoverage/aap/76116?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2018-11-05&eun=g721819d0r&pos=1111&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Headlines%202018-11-05&utm_term=Daily%20Headlines%20-%20Active%20User%20-%20180%20days