Anti-Biotics

[Winklebury]

I have seen a very very Panorama about the increasingly ineffective performance of anti-biotics.

See in this link.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... apocalypse

Thoughts?

Wink

[BaseOne]

Thoughts?

Have been thinking lately, that a lot of the events we prep for are actually caused by ourselves.

[dangerman]

Ourselves? I wash my hands of all of the knobs who are in charge of this screwed up society we live in. It's true though, improve something, destroy something. It's a theme.

The good news about anti-biotics is that if you are the kind of person who they do still work on during a crisis, they have a lifespan of decades or more. So, if you can, stock up!

[izzy_mack]

this is something that has bothered me since I first started putting a medicine chest together. Other than buying dodgy stuff on internet (no thanks), I cannot see how we can get antibiotics.

The worrying thing is that as more and more of them don't work, simple accidents that we give little thought to now, will have a totally different impact on us. Simple things like going to the dentist would be scary or getting a cut on your hand while gardening. On a personal note I can think of 2 occasions that a member of my family may have died without them, one almost certainly, but even if they amputated the limb, he would still have struggled without antibiotics for the resulting wound from the operation.

[dangerman]

Y'all scaring that shat outta me now.

No prepping can prevent someone catching bacterial infections during their lifetime. People used to just die. Maybe it's the real 'Happening'.

[Decaff]

Mr Decaff is still in hospital after major bowel surgery, one of his wounds got infected and they linked him up to this box thing that sucked out the infection as they weren't sure antibiotics would be of any use, two weeks later the smell coming out of this wound was stomach churning and I insisted On seeing the surgeon about antibiotics as this thing clearly wasn't working, its taken a further three weeks of being on a drip of antibiotics to finally clear it up. The surgeon said that its very risky doing this surgery now as antibiotics just do not work should the wounds after this type of surgery get infected. Granted its bowel surgery which is high risk for infections but a very scary thought all the same.

[Brambles]

There is a reason some medications are regulated and it's not just because they are dangerous. Antibiotics being one of them. If they are used as a matter of course and then folk self medicate willy nilly, this is the result. What was once one of the most powerful lifesaving drugs in a medics aresenal is reduced to being little better than snake oil.
It both depresses and scares me in equal measure that people do not see the potential for harm they are doing by having unregulated antibiotics in their medicines.

I'd love to hear a medics views on this subject.

[ForgeCorvus]

There is a reason some medications are regulated and it's not just because they are dangerous. Antibiotics being one of them. If they are used as a matter of course and then folk self medicate willy nilly, this is the result. What was once one of the most powerful lifesaving drugs in a medics aresenal is reduced to being little better than snake oil.
It both depresses and scares me in equal measure that people do not see the potential for harm they are doing by having unregulated antibiotics in their medicines.

I'd love to hear a medics views on this subject.

This is one of the reasons antibiotic-resistant 'bugs' are so common, the other being people not finishing the course "Because I felt better"
Somebody once told me they'd been to hospital in some country and seen signs everywhere in Spanish reminding people that it was illegal to not finish a prescribed course..... Sounds like a good idea to me.

Infection control needs to be more important, you don't need to use antibiotics if you don't catch anything in the first place

[Holomon]

I'm waiting to see the outcome from the WHO World Health Assembly which is taking place at the moment. They're due to issue a combined Global Action Plan specifically about antimicrobial resistance as it's still a very daunting subject.
It's actually part of my workload at the moment so it's coincidence it's been brought up here this week! I'm halfway through reading up on a separate study about intestinal bacteria and it's effect on antimicrobial resistance which is also fairly concerning. There's evidence to suggest that not only does the bacteria exchange resistant genes, it can affect bacteria passing through the intestines as well which would make things exponentially worse.

Once the WHO report gets released and I finish my own catching up I'll put together a more comprehensive post on the subject with some facts and figures.

[featherstick]

In fairness the impact of people not finishing courses or being prescribed unnecessary antibiotics for a cold to get them out of the surgery is only part of the story.

The other part is the criminally irresponsible intensive meat industry that very quickly discovered that routine dosing with antibiotics made animals grow quicker and therefore more profitable. This abuse has gone on for decades and the effects have been known about for many years but there is a lack of political will and joined-up thinking to deal with it, and so it continues - concentrated profit for the few, dispersed risk for the many.

People should go to jail.