By Michelle Healy The number of antibiotic prescriptions for
kids declined 14% from 2002 to 2010, but antibiotics remain the
most frequently prescribed drugs for pediatric patients, a
federal analysis finds. Antibiotics accounted for about a
quarter of all pediatric prescriptions; amoxicillin leads the
list. Overall, 263.6 million prescriptions were written for
patients 17 and under in 2010, down 7% from 2002, finds the
analysis of prescription claims databases by Food and Drug
Administration researchers, published today in the journal
Pediatrics. By comparison, 3.3 billion were dispensed for ages
18 and up, 22% more than in 2002. The medical community has made
"an enormous effort to decrease antibiotic use" for kids in the
past decade "by educating parents about the futility of treating
viral infections with antibiotics" and about antibiotic
resistance, the FDA study says. Those efforts "are succeeding to
some extent," but this study and others show antibiotic overuse
"is still a big problem," says Adam Hers