ATLANTA, March 3 — Doctors and patients are beginning to curb their use of antibiotics as a result of educational programs, federal health officials said Wednesday. The inappropriate use of antibiotics has led illness-causing microbes to become resistant to such drugs. Antibiotic resistance is a major public health problem throughout the world and is particularly common among the bacteria that cause ear and respiratory infections. "We are making progress" against the problem in this country, said Dr. Richard E. Besser, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "When we look at the prescribing data across the nation,...