antibiotics

White children are more likely to receive unnecessary antibiotics for viral illnesses during emergency room visits than their black and Hispanic peers.

Legislation like the Clean Water Act has helped check the effluent flowing into rivers and streams. Though that fight is far from over, a new, all-too-modern danger has meanwhile seeped invisibly into waters around the world: legal and illegal drugs. And their effect on the ecosystem is poorly understood.

The issue: Since penicillin was introduced in the 1940s, antibiotics have saved countless lives. But we have used these drugs so much for so long that the diseases they once killed have adapted and developed immunity. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 23,000 Americans now die each year from infections by bacteria that are impervious to antibiotics.