This is an opinion my main character in the Sybil Norcroft series of novellas would get excited about and would publish it far and wide using her bully pulpits—the position of Chief Medical Consultant for Wolf News Network and later as the Surgeon General of the United States. In late April, 2014, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) released its Threat Report 2013 with an in depth discussion of the scientific evidence regarding the prevalence of allergy to penicillin in America. Of the more than 300 million Americans, 10%–nearly 30 million people—self-report that they are allergic to penicillin. The CDC reports—on the contrary—that 28.5 million of those people are wrong. When carefully evaluated 19 out of 20 of them do not have a true allergy to penicillin and its family of medications.
It is reasonable to ask if it matters if people wrongly think that they are allergic and for that reason avoid using penicillin and its congeners. The answer is emphatically that it does matter a great deal. The misconception about penicillin allergy results in over usage of other, far more broad-spectrum antibiotics; and that leads to our mounting crisis of antibiotic resistant infections. This is hazardous to the health of individuals and to the nation and is extremely expensive. Penicillin is cheap; newer broad spectrum antibiotics still under patent are inordinately expensive. The mistaken belief that people are allergic to penicillin but are not leads to prolongation of hospital stays, significantly more antibiotic usage, and increased incidence of MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus), VRSA (Vancomycin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus), VRE (Vancomycin Resistant Enterococcus), C-Diff (Clostridium difficile), and fungal infections. Almost all of those infections are significantly more injurious and lethal than the original penicillin sensitive infections.
The CDC reports that more than two million such infections and 23,000 deaths occur each year in the U.S. Choice of antibiotics is becoming increasingly more limited throughout the country and people die as a direct result of antibiotic failures. Many of those failures are avoidable by physicians determining whether or not their patients are in fact allergic; and if not, returning to the use of older, but still effective, simple penicillin. The study included 50,000 hospitalized patients and found that 20% of patients admitted to hospitals report being allergic to penicillin, and they are the most vulnerable to antibiotic resistant infections. Skin testing for penicillin allergy, use of penicillin as the first line drug, and the avoidance of broad spectrum antibiotics is a cheaper and more effective way to deal with individual infections and the nation’s antibiotic resistance problems.