Welcome to Get Smart Colorado
This site is an archive of a former Colorado antibiotics education campaign that published between about 2003 and 2010. It is not a health authority and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or speaking for any government agency, university, hospital or professional society. The wording below is the campaign's own historical material and is kept for the record; talk to your own clinician about your own care.
Antibiotics and antibiotic resistance
Antibiotics work well against infections caused by bacteria, but do not work on colds, the flu, or other infections caused by viruses.
The treatment of some illnesses is getting harder due to a problem called antibiotic resistance. Simply put, antibiotic resistance means that the bacteria that cause many illnesses are out-smarting the drugs we have to treat them.
The world faces the risk that antibiotic medications may no longer work to treat many illnesses. Some health care professionals and research scientists fear we are at the brink of returning to the “pre-antibiotic” era when some common infections, like pneumonia, resulted in much greater morbidity and mortality than it does when it can be treated with antibiotics.
One of the main causes of antibiotic resistance is the overuse and incorrect use of antibiotics. Antibiotics are often incorrectly used to treat sicknesses such as colds, flu, and bronchitis. Antibiotics do not cure or help these illnesses because they are almost always caused by viruses.
Instead of antibiotics, the Get Smart Colorado Antibiotics Campaign recommends you try other approaches for treating colds, the flu, and bronchitis. Together we can use antibiotics wisely so that these life-saving medicines keep working.
Campaign pages
- The CampaignWhat Get Smart Colorado was, its objectives and its campaign activities.
- Prevention TipsIllness prevention and home treatment advice as the campaign published it.
- A Guide for ParentsThe campaign's guidance for parents, including its illness chart.
- FAQsQuestions on germs, antibiotic resistance, illnesses and antibacterial products.
- ProvidersThe guideline documents the campaign indexed for clinicians.
- Office MaterialsPosters, reference cards, brochures and order forms the campaign distributed.
- Materials for Childcare and EducatorsColoring pages, games and fact sheets prepared for childcare settings.
- Media and EventsThe campaign's media materials listing.
- Related LinksOrganisations and other state campaigns the campaign listed at the time.
- Antibiotic Prescribing Course (2008-2010)A continuing-education course the campaign ran, now ended.
- En EspanolLa campana en espanol: prevencion, preguntas frecuentes y materiales.
Where this campaign was, and how to read it now
This archive is not a health authority and does not provide medical advice. For advice about your own health or your child's health, speak to your own doctor, nurse or pharmacist.
About this archive
The posters, quick reference cards, brochures, over-the-counter medication guides and order forms the campaign distributed were published as PDF files. None of those files survive in the recovered site, so the Materials pages list their titles only.
The continuing-education course the campaign offered ran from October 2008 to October 2010 and ended on that date. Its page is kept as a record.
Pages injected into this domain after the campaign ended have been removed and are not part of this archive.