I wasn't sure wether to place this post under activism or politics. I am choosing to place this underpolitics since its not directly related to gender.
Are society as a whole has become far to dependent on antibiotics as the only means of fighting bacterial diseases. It is the OIL of the medical world and they pharmasudical companies are the gas companies. As a society we tend to pick one thing that works at the time and go lets base our entire economy around that and ignore all other alternatives. Bacteria started showing signs of resistance as early as the 60s so what did we do lets just give it a differnet antibiotic. Guess what where about out of effective antibiotics to try.
Why have antibiotics begone to fail us as a soceity so fast? Because we abused the hell out of them. First doctors have overprescribed antibiotics for a long time now for problems they can't even help. Patient comes in "Doctor I don't feel good" overworked doctor hands them some antibiotics and tells them to check backj in later nevermind that the patient had a viral condition in the first place. Second problem people get a prescription for an antibiotic that is supposed to be taken a set amount of time untill it runs out. What do people do they take them to they feel better and save the rest for a rainy day. All the while remenants of the bacteria still in their system are adaptaing to that antibiotic and preparing to come back all the stronger latter. Third agriculture and the food industry. Half of all the antibiotics we produce go to livestock and plants. Everything fromt he cheeseburger you had for lunch to that apple you just ate had antibiotics used on it before it got to you. Thirteen million pounds of antibiotics a year are fed to to livestock to promote growth and health. It's no wonder we have created a enviroment jsut perfect for multiple antibiotic resist diseases to flourish such as MRSA. do you know what MRSA basicaly is a staph infection something that doctors laughed at 50 years ago and perscribed penicillin and MRSA is now VRSA in 2002 Vancomycin the last super antibiotic we had to treat MRSA was beat out as a resistant strain developed. The problem is realized by many but almost no where I look do i see any large scale plans being formed to do soemhting about it. Regualtions need to be enforced and antibiotic perscriptions and people and doctors need to be properly educated in their use. If nothing is done the millions of dollars the large scale pharmasudical companies are spending into research trying to find new antibiotics is just going to be wasted as the cycle repeats itself even faster this time. The biggest thing that needs to be done though is to promote research into alternatives to antibiotic use such as phage therapy. Not diversifying and having no fallback is how we got into this mess. Bottom line hopefully the government the FDA and the medical industry will wake up and start working to solve the problem togther in the upcoming term. If not the death toil is going to rise and more and more people are going to suffer. Before I end something funny I found.
The History of Medicine
2000 b.c. Here, eat this root.
1000 a.d. That root is heathen. Here, say this prayer.
1850 a.d. That prayer is superstition. Here, drink this potion.
1920 a.d. That potion is snake oil. Here, swallow this pill.
1945 a.d. That pill is ineffective. Here, take this penicillin.
1955 a.d. Oops ... bugs mutated. Here, take this tetracycline.
1960-1999 39 more "oops"... Here, take this more powerful antibiotic.
2000 a.d. The bugs have won! Here, eat this root.
