Another type of drug that is grossly over prescribed to children is antibiotics. Not only as the researchers stated are antibiotics useless on cold viruses but they have literally decimated the human immune system and given rise to a whole new generation of super bacteria. "In the last twenty five years the miracle of antibiotics has boomeranged" stated Stuart B. Levy, M.D. professor of medicine and molecular biology at

Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston and author of "The Antibiotic Paradox; How miracle drugs are destroying the miracle."

He explained that "The list of antibiotics that are no longer effective in treating illnesses everything from ear skin and urinary tract infections to pneumonia tuberculosis and malaria is long and unparalleled. Ant this lack of responses is due in large measure to the overuse and misuse of these antibiotics."

The World Health Organization agrees. In its 1996 report the WHO singled out the "the uncontrolled and inappropriate use of antibiotics," as one of the primary reasons for the outbreak of drug resistant strains of infectious diseases. "They are used by too many people to treat the wrong kind of infections at the wrong dosage and for the wrong period of time" the report stated.

Yet, despite the numerous warnings many doctors continue to prescribe antibiotics to most of their patients. A report in Ladies Home Journal noted, "A child’s ear infection offers a classic example of how over treatment with antibiotics can lead to the development of drug resistant strains of bacteria. For years amoxicillin penicillin like antibiotic was the standard treatment for acute otitis media. However these infections usually clear without treatment in two to three days.

"However," the Journal report continued, "because amoxicillin has been so over prescribed some ear infections that in the past might have responded to it no longer do. As a result doctors are forced to prescribe one after another of stronger and more expensive medications. Furthermore the stronger antibiotics are the broad spectrum ones which kill the so called good bacteria as well as the bad making children vulnerable to secondary infections."

"So far," said Dr. Levy, "we’ve been able to stay a step ahead of most drug resistant bacteria by creating newer more powerful drugs. But for how much longer? Every person taking an antibiotic potentially contributes a little bit to the environmental pool of resistant bacteria."