What are the risks of not following best practices in PHP when working with multiple databases and how can they impact the application's functionality?

Not following best practices in PHP when working with multiple databases can lead to security vulnerabilities, data inconsistency, and performance issues. To mitigate these risks, it is essential to use parameterized queries, validate user input, and properly handle database connections and transactions.

// Example of using parameterized queries to prevent SQL injection
$pdo = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=database1', 'username', 'password');
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM table WHERE id = :id');
$stmt->bindParam(':id', $id, PDO::PARAM_INT);
$stmt->execute();
$result = $stmt->fetchAll();