THE DARK SIDE OF "WONDER" DRUGS
By Charles W. Moore
© 1998 Charles W. Moore
Health Canada has read the riot act to farmers who use antibiotics as growth enhancers
for livestock. Either reduce antibiotic use voluntarily or face legislation, was
the gist of a November 3 announcement by the federal agency after a Canadian Medical
Association Journal report said excessive amounts of antibiotics being used on livestock
are contributing to the creation of "superbugs" that cause disease in humans.
It's not before time. Rampant misuse of antibiotics has resulted in the development
of antibiotic-resistant strains of illnesses like tuberculosis, meningitis, and pneumonia.
Science magazine reported that there are now antibiotic resistant variants of all
major bacterial diseases. Some are resistant to virtually all known antibiotics,
leaving doctors and patients virtually helpless against them.
Not surprisingly, some agriculturalists are resisting antibiotic reforms. "I can't
see that it's justified," Ben Thorlakson, president of the 110,000-member Canadian
Cattlemen's Association, told the Canadian Press. "I'd like to see some real good
science on this. I haven't seen it so far."
Unhappily, by the time the sort of science that would satisfy Mr. Thorlakson is available,
we may have an epidemic of antibiotic resistant disease on our hands that nobody
can stop. Dr. Brian Ward, associate professor of microbiology and infectious disease
at McGill University in Montreal is quoted saying that "The end result is (by) giving
antibiotics to animals indiscriminately we are effectively forcing the bacteria to
become resistant to those antibiotics."
It's not only agricultural abuse of antibiotics that's responsible for "superbugs"
like the one that cost Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard his leg. A 1997 Ontario study
found that 62 per cent of patients complaining of acute sore throats were prescribed
antibiotics by their doctors. A 1997 U.S. study found about half of all patients
with colds get antibiotics. However, antibiotics don't affect the progress of uncomplicated
viral infections like colds or flu at all -- any apparent benefit is coincidental
or the placebo effect.
Critics charge that too many family physicians hand out useless antibiotic prescriptions
under pressure from people demanding a "quick fix." Antibiotic abuse is partly a
cultural phenomenon, exacerbated by factors like working parents who don't want to
stay home with sick kids, and therefore demand that the doctor "give them something"
-- usually an antibiotic. Upwards of seventy-five percent of medical office visits
conclude with a drug prescription. In 1995, Canadian doctors wrote 26 million antibiotic
prescriptions. "Antibiotics are being used, let's say, imprudently," says microbiologist
Julian Davies, who has studied the drugs for 30 years. "Most of the antibiotics prescribed
in the community are not necessary."
A 1995 Gallup poll found that 83% of Canadians surveyed didn't understand what antibiotic
resistance is or how it is related to consumer use. Nearly half mistakenly believed
that antibiotics are effective against colds and flu.
In the Netherlands, only 6 percent of children treated for uncomplicated ear infections
are given antibiotics, compared with a whopping 97 percent in North America. Interestingly,
the frequency of complications is about the same. Even proponents of aggressive antibiotic
treatment for juvenile ear infections admit that the drugs are really necessary in
only about two percent of cases.
Dr. Reuben Grunberg of University College in London, England, says that "hospital
plagues" like antibiotic resistant pneumonia and staphylococcus infections in surgical
wounds are becoming "almost uncontrollable." One report claims that seventy percent
of hospital-acquired infections in the U.S. are now antibiotic-resistant. Several
U.S. hospitals have had to quarantine sections housing patients with untreatable
bacterial infections in order to minimize risk of transmission.
Not only does antibiotic misuse and abuse pose a danger to public health, it can also
endanger the health of individual patients taking these drugs. Antibiotics kill off
beneficial bacteria (probiotics) in the gut, which can result in digestive problems,
yeast infections, allergies, and other unpleasant consequences.
Farmers say they use antibiotics increase cost efficiency and that reducing drug use
will result in higher meat prices. However more expensive meat is a trivial matter
compared with potential epidemics of "superbug" diseases.
The discovery of antibiotics made bacterial disease much less dreadful (at least temporarily),
and sometimes they mean the difference between life and death. But in our arrogantly
misplaced belief that we can control such things, we took what might have been an
unalloyed blessing and turned it into a manufactured plague. If antibiotics had remained
an "ultimate weapon", used only in extreme cases, their dark side might have remained
dormant indefinitely. Instead, we let doctors hand out these powerful drugs as patient
pacifiers and allowed farmers to routinely feed them to livestock, and now we reap
the consequences of our folly.
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