My French medical school professor of bacteriology, Mme. le Professeur Jeanne Orfila, stood in front of her (our) class near tears. She was not the sort of woman who frequently fell into that state, so I vividly remember the day she told us this:
“Prescribe antibiotics carefully, and only when you have to. Every time you prescribe antibiotics, you are creating more and more bacteria who will “learn” to make themselves resistant to antibiotics. So they will work less well against human disease. Read more on How Many Deaths Will It Take?…
Filed under Alternative Medicine, medicine, News by on Nov 5th, 2019. Comment. 
America has created wonder drugs for the world.
Then it rendered them unusable.
Both antibiotics and corticosteroids are not what they once were. Read more on Meds To Cure (or Harm) The World…
Filed under Alternative Medicine, Diagnosis, Disease, Doctors, medicine, News by on Apr 23rd, 2018. Comment.
I idolized the American medical establishment. When I was a mere Blue Cross number-collecting lackey working at the front desk of the Emergency Room of Massachusetts General Hospital, I sometimes saw, slipping into the doctors’ lounge, notable people — doctors whose surname in footnotes graced the basic core medical textbooks I was using as parallel reading in France, to prepare myself for my American examinations in medicine. I never wanted to penetrate more than the lowest echelons of the American medical establishment when I returned from France. I mean I doubted the Harvard-types would open their world to me easily, no matter how clever I was. I proved to be right. At a Harvard-associated residency program, I was actually asked at the interview if anyone in my family was a Harvard University trained physician. I still remember the program chairman’s barely muffled laughter when I told him my father held a graduate degree from the Harvard University School of music. Read more on Drug Misuse in American Medicine Leads to Possible Catastrophe…
Filed under Doctors, medicine, News, prescription drugs by on May 23rd, 2016. Comment.
One of the themes that keeps coming up in those little “newslets” for 15 minutes of Continuing Medical Education each is that systematic screening for several serious diseases, like cancers, is simply not as efficient as one wishes it were. At the very least, in terms of cost, it rarely pays. Sometimes people try to identify a subset of people who should be screened; but all too often, even that is a daunting task.
Some stalwart and doubtless realistic physicians sometimes suggest–screen patients who ask for it. This seems strikingly similar to the young doctor in Amiens who told me, that if he wanted to build a practice and feed his family, he had to give everyone antibiotics. It is that ancient trend of anti-intellectualism, patients who second-guess the doctor, people who are worried about their health– And yet, these people could argue that (they have paid their health insurance and earned what they think is good care), and they are individuals and not statistics. Read more on When To Screen For Things Medical That Could Kill…
When I’m not on the internet, I generally catch the latest news on the car radio, like lots of other folks tied up in California freeway traffic. Yesterday the question had been raised whether Foster Farms chicken was in some way associated with a salmonella outbreak. The company suggested that improper preparation of the raw chicken was responsible.
Not so. Now the news reported by USA Today, whom I applaud for picking up this story, says that Foster Farms was also the origin of a salmonella outbreak in 2012 in Oregon and Washington that sickened 134 people in 13 states.
It is reasonable to ask, “What the hell is going on?” Read more on Playing Chicken With The Gvt. Shutdown…
Filed under Government, News by on Oct 9th, 2013. Comment.
I kind of like ABC news, since they at least reported the news about azithromycin and a lot of other folks didn’t.
For more information, here is the original article, and here is the FDA safety announcement (this link leads to a PDF which will load in a separate window, but you must have the Adobe Acrobat reader – free – installed). Read more on Azithromycin Scare…
Filed under Alternative Medicine, FDA, Government, medicine, News, prescription drugs by on Jul 22nd, 2013. Comment.
Strange, that the meningitis-tainted steroids in Tennessee make me think of the chocolate bar case from Oklahoma. Two young, and it seemed to me, perfectly honest if somewhat histrionic young women who found worms in their Hershey bars — the hard way. Both were unemployed and mothers of several children each, and one was pregnant. They were enjoying their chocolate bars in a dark room by the light of the TV set when one noticed something funny. Comparing experiences, the other one agreed that the bars tasted “off.” Turning on the lights (and — pardon me — spitting out the foul tasting candy) they saw a horrible sight. The almonds were infested with worms. Oh, it was scary, and one in particular told me she started throwing up, and had lost weight. She had developed some sort of a phobia for chocolate bars in general, and had poor sleep, and was 3 months pregnant. They both had the classic signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder — they could not stop thinking about and reliving the ordeal, they developed an avoidance of any chocolate or other type of candy bar, and they had a violent “startle” reaction if they encountered a TV commercial or if somebody they saw in public was eating a candy bar. Now the expectant mother did not particularly want to medicate for fear of damaging her unborn child, and that was fine with me. I recall we tried to use a little relaxation, or NLP (neurolinguistic programming), or anything, really, non-medical to calm down this young lady. We succeeded, at least somewhat, but not entirely. She did tell me that the Hershey bar had “been around” for a little, but I was unaware of any expiry date existing for Hershey bars; checked some at the supermarket, and never saw a date. Read more on Meningitis and Hershey Bars…
Filed under medical errors, News by on Nov 9th, 2012. Comment.
In the National World War II museum, it is easy and even triumphant and pride-generating to look back and see some of the scientific advances made during World War II. There’s no doubt that science is advancing. But I wonder if our ethics can keep pace.
I am fairly proud of Teflon. And synthetic cortisone is widely used and may have saved plenty of lives. It’s a steroid that knocks down the action of the immune system. When a medical substance becomes cheaper and easier to use and known to the public, then it runs a real danger of getting overused. Most concern about overuse is focused on illegal steroids taken by athletes. Nevertheless, everything that can be helpful and fast may make things worse. One example would be the over-prescribing of steroids to kids with allergies.
Penicillin had been invented before WWII, but its use did not become widespread until WWII. Of course, it took people awhile to find out about the ability of bacteria to develop resistances to antibiotics. This has led to newer and stronger antibiotics, which would not be the worst thing in the world. Unfortunately, the excessive use of antibiotics has led to untreatable infections, such as methicilline-resistant strep and an untreatable strain of tuberculosis. Read more on Science and War (and Ethics)…
Filed under medicine, News, prescription drugs, Research, Science by on Oct 14th, 2012. Comment.
As it turns out, this whole bit about the use of antibiotics in livestock and poultry is a complex issue. It’s well beyond anything that anyone would guess at first blush. The best online summary is the position paper put out by Food Marketing Institute. Curiously enough, it doesn’t have a year on it. Based on the references, I’d guess it was probably around 2005.
The Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of therapeutically low doses of antibiotics in feed. However, very few studies were conducted. They decided that giving little bits of antibiotics to animals would help avoid illness. What this means in practical life is that they will grow faster and produce more meat prior to being slaughtered and eaten.
Everybody agrees that using too many antibiotics in humans can cause humans to become resistant to those antibiotics. This has been blamed on everything from patients who want a prescription for an illness that isn’t caused by bacteria to doctors feeling they need to give a prescription to justify their fee. This kind of talk has been around for a long time. Read more on Antibiotics in Livestock Feed Endanger The Entire World…
Filed under medicine, News, prescription drugs by on Sep 23rd, 2012. 1 Comment.
I read a joke once about a husband’s preemptive strike in the bedroom. He walks in holding two aspirin and a glass of water. When his wife asks what it’s for he says it’s for her headache. She replies “But I don’t have a headache.” “Gotcha!”
Headaches are no fun, so we might as well get a little chuckle at their expense. And if you suffer from sinus headaches, there might be quick and inexpensive relief your doctor hasn’t shared with you.
Listen, I have had allergies since I was small but sinus headaches have been rare. That is, until I got my complete dental implants. They have wildly improved my quality of life, but I have had more intense and regular sinus headaches as a result. My surgeon had removed teeth prior to the implants and freely admitted he had been up in my sinus area. He said I could see an ear nose and throat specialist if the sinus headaches became too much of a problem. He tried to ignore my laughter as I told him I could fix this myself. Read more on What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Sinus Headaches…
Filed under Alternative Medicine, Diagnosis, medicine by on Sep 3rd, 2012. 1 Comment.