It's World Health Day. What are You Doing to Combat the Spread of Antimicrobial Resistance?
Following the anthrax attack after 9/11 someone I knew began keeping a bottle of Cipro on his desk. He went through it that week. Had his family on it too - more bottles at home. I distinctly remember him telling me that I really needed to get to be buds with a doctor so I could get the good stuff. I worried that I'd put my family at risk by not developing a dealer. Of course I'd never really thought about it before because I had another friend who had always had several Z-paks in her top drawer. "I just call and say I've got a fever and a red throat and he writes me a 'script'." She mainly got them for her mother because her Mom's doctor wouldn't ever give her anything; "he always just says 'it's a virus'."
Now that we have relearned that many bacteria and fungi are keen on killing us and feasting on our corpses shouldn't we be keeping our powder dry? And now that we're learning almost daily of new microscopic bugs suspected of causing cancer (See e.g. "Novel Clues on the Specific Association of Streptococcus gallolyticus subspecies gallolyticus With Colorectal Cancer") shouldn't we hold off on using antibiotics until we see the whites of their colonies cultured in a petri dish lest we make them immune to what few weapons we have?
Read all about it at the WHO's "Combat Drug Resistance" webpage.
