I live in an Asian country where antibiotics are massively overused. Go to the local pharmacy and tell them you have cold symptoms and you're likely to get 3 different full spectrum antibiotics.
I've asked a few pharmacists about this and the usually say they know it is bad but it is what people expect -- the more pills they get, the more effective they think the treatment will be. If you don't hand out as many pills as the pharmacy down the road then you'll lose customers and go out of business. So it is a race to the bottom tragedy of the commons kind of market failure that can only really be fixed with effective government regulation. Which isn't easy in a developing country, to say the least.
Is this Japan, perchance? Every time we take my kid to a doctor here they seem to reach for antibiotics. Extremely frustrating and the source of some cross-cultural marriage tension.
I've asked a few pharmacists about this and the usually say they know it is bad but it is what people expect -- the more pills they get, the more effective they think the treatment will be. If you don't hand out as many pills as the pharmacy down the road then you'll lose customers and go out of business. So it is a race to the bottom tragedy of the commons kind of market failure that can only really be fixed with effective government regulation. Which isn't easy in a developing country, to say the least.