‘Must I take all my antibiotics?’ Why infectious disease experts are rethinking this longstanding rule

For decades, researchers thought that bacteria become resistant to antibiotics if patients stopped taking these drugs early. Liudmila Chernetska/iStock via Getty Images Plus

You’ve probably heard it for years, every time you get a prescription for antibiotics: “Make sure to take all the pills.”

Traditionally, clinicians have given two reasons for these strict instructions: So the infection doesn’t come back, and so you don’t end up with bugs so hearty that antibiotics can’t kill them.