Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

We Kill Germs at Our Peril - ‘Missing Microbes’: How Antibiotics Can Do Harm
NY Times ^ | April 28, 2014 | Abigail Zuger M.D.

Posted on 04/30/2014 9:41:21 PM PDT by neverdem

You never get something for nothing, especially not in health care. Every test, every incision, every little pill brings benefits and risks.

Nowhere is that balance tilting more ominously in the wrong direction than in the once halcyon realm of infectious diseases, that big success story of the 20th century. We have had antibiotics since the mid-1940s — just about as long as we have had the atomic bomb, as Dr. Martin J. Blaser points out — and our big mistake was failing long ago to appreciate the parallels between the two.

Antibiotics have cowed many of our old bacterial enemies into submission: We aimed to blast them off the planet, and we dosed accordingly. Now we are beginning to reap the consequences. It turns out that not all germs are bad — and even some bad germs are not all bad. In “Missing Microbes,” Dr. Blaser, a professor at the New York University School of Medicine, presents the daunting array of reasons we have to rethink the enthusiastic destruction of years past.

First and foremost, the war has escalated. Imprudent antibiotic use has resulted in widespread resistance among microbes; infectious disease doctors (I am one, as well as a casual acquaintance of Dr. Blaser’s) now operate in a state of permanent near panic as common infections demand increasingly powerful drugs for control.

Second, as always, it is the hapless bystanders who have suffered the most — not human beings, mind you, but the gazillions of benevolent, hardworking bacteria colonizing our skin and the inner linings of our gastrointestinal tracts. We need these good little creatures to survive, but even a short course of antibiotics can destroy their universe, with incalculable casualties and a devastated landscape. Sometimes neither the citizenry nor the habitat ever recovers.

And finally, there is the...

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: antibiotics; microbiology; probiotics
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-31 next last

1 posted on 04/30/2014 9:41:21 PM PDT by neverdem
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: neverdem

Have a dog give you a lick. It will be gross and very nice at the sametime and it will cure what ails ya.
http://s58.photobucket.com/user/TFOGas/media/Blog/dog-lick-eat-baby-main_Full1.jpg.html


2 posted on 04/30/2014 9:57:49 PM PDT by minnesota_bound
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

Think, if we hadn’t wasted all that money on global warming we my have had a replacement already.


3 posted on 04/30/2014 10:02:06 PM PDT by dila813
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

Going for pro-biotics anyone?


4 posted on 04/30/2014 10:11:23 PM PDT by huldah1776
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: huldah1776

Yup!


5 posted on 04/30/2014 10:23:34 PM PDT by Sioux-san
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

Basic hygiene is considered passé today. That’s why we have MRSA and C-DIFF. It’s not weird organisms mutating. It’s the med/sci establishment deteriorating.


6 posted on 04/30/2014 10:29:28 PM PDT by Forgotten Amendments (On the wrong side of history.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

Until 200 years ago, infection was ALWAYS the number one killer of human beings.

Vaccinations and public health systems - like clean water - are the only reason that is not true today.

I say solve the infection crisis the old fashioned way:

Pour money into basic research.


7 posted on 04/30/2014 10:32:03 PM PDT by zeestephen
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Forgotten Amendments; All

Hand washing between patients is not practiced as rigidly as it once was. We need to put teeth into punishment for failure to hand wash especially when it leads to infections.
Incidentally, have you ever seen the green mold that grows on old oranges. That is old fashioned penicillin. When I am doing a lot of rough work, I keep a moldy orange in the frig, and if I get a cut or scrape rub some of the mold on it or on the bandage. Works fine. Better than dog licks. Also urge people to eat yogurt or probiotics for a week after a course of penicillin.


8 posted on 04/30/2014 11:10:28 PM PDT by gleeaikin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

Kill them all! Replace the necessary ones with nanobots.


9 posted on 04/30/2014 11:30:51 PM PDT by DannyTN
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: huldah1776; Sioux-san

Yep - right here - - -Spouse is big on that, and more.


10 posted on 04/30/2014 11:39:44 PM PDT by USARightSide (S U P P O R T I N G OUR T R O O P S)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: zeestephen

’ - - infection was ALWAYS the number one killer of human beings.’

Accidents were high in there somewhere - - -


11 posted on 04/30/2014 11:42:14 PM PDT by USARightSide (S U P P O R T I N G OUR T R O O P S)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: zeestephen

I’d add sanitation to the list.
Not too high on vaccinations myself, tho. . .


12 posted on 04/30/2014 11:46:02 PM PDT by USARightSide (S U P P O R T I N G OUR T R O O P S)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: USARightSide

Number 4 on most lists.

Until 1800 the death list was:

(1) Infection - which killed about half of all children and most of the elderly

(2) Starvation, Malnutrition and related diseases

(3) Hypothermia (frigid weather) and related diseases

(4) Trauma - war, homicide, accidental injuries


13 posted on 05/01/2014 12:27:44 AM PDT by zeestephen
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
From the article: Antibiotics are partly responsible, but so are other medical habits, such as our increasing use of cesarean sections. These aseptic procedures prevent newborns from acquiring their mothers’ organisms through the birth canal, possibly setting them up for a lifetime of trouble, with higher than normal risks of a range of immune-related problems.

From a recent study: In conclusion, the present study indicates a different colonization pattern in the oral cavity between three-month-old infants delivered vaginally and those delivered by Caesarian section. The reasons for the differences are unknown, as is whether these differences have long-term impact on the oral or general health of the child. Possible reasons for differences will likely include the relative influence of host receptor and mucosal and saliva immune phenotypes, and interactions with environmental exposures.

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/51558674_Mode_of_birth_delivery_affects_oral_microbiota_in_infants/file/504635249d71004993.pdf

I don't think there is any established science regarding the effects of bacterial infusions at birth. It should not be ruled out, but there are probably a number of other factors that are more important.

14 posted on 05/01/2014 2:09:37 AM PDT by palmer (There's someone in my lead but it's not me)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: gleeaikin
Works fine. Better than dog licks.

Like every other environmental factor the effects of antibiotics (homemade or not) and dog licks are both good and bad. There is a some benefit from some amount of everything (nutrients, other food, water, germs, etc). Too much of any factor is detrimental along with too little. Our culture rarely figures out the amounts that are just right. Far too many people are constantly avoiding germs one way or another and suffer for it. Still others may get a little too much dog saliva. The right amounts may exist in the right natural products like the dog saliva or moldy orange but perhaps neither of those had natural origins either and are a little imbalanced in one way or another.

15 posted on 05/01/2014 2:16:26 AM PDT by palmer (There's someone in my lead but it's not me)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
You never get something for nothing, especially not in health care.

Ah, so health care is the exception? Note the double negative. A doctor, huh? Where did she learn English?

16 posted on 05/01/2014 2:43:01 AM PDT by raybbr (Obamacare needs a death panel.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: minnesota_bound

aaah, nothing better than that baby basset love.

17 posted on 05/01/2014 3:04:29 AM PDT by ican'tbelieveit
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

Avoiding antibiotics unless absolutely necessary is helpful. I know a lady who pops them anytime she doesn’t feel well, which is often. Her doc must think it easier that actually telling her to fight off whatever is ailing her, and that antibiotics don’t work on viruses.

We’re big probiotic fans. I prefer to populate our guts with the good stuff. I also switched our family to regular hand soap instead of antibacterial.


18 posted on 05/01/2014 3:33:20 AM PDT by goodwithagun (My gun has killed fewer people than Ted Kennedy's car.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: gleeaikin

Silver: Nature’s Water Purifier

http://doulton.ca/silver.html

“In a world concerned with the spreading of virus and disease, silver is increasingly being tapped for its bactericidal properties and used in treatments for conditions ranging from severe burns to Legionnaires Disease.

While silver’s importance as a bactericide has been documented only since the late 1800s, its use in purification has been known throughout the ages. Early records indicate that the Phoenicians, for example, used silver vessels to keep water, wine and vinegar pure during their long voyages. In America, pioneers moving west put silver and copper coins in their water barrels to keep it clean.

In fact, “born with a silver spoon in his mouth” is not a reference to wealth, but to health. In the early 18th century, babies who were fed with silver spoons were healthier than those fed with spoons made from other metals, and silver pacifiers found wide use in America because of their beneficial health effects.


19 posted on 05/01/2014 3:42:05 AM PDT by panaxanax
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

There are exceptions but this is mostly a Democrat problem from excessively high population density. If it wasn’t for the invention of steel girder buildings, humans could not live in massively parallel germ evolution petri dishes.


20 posted on 05/01/2014 4:00:03 AM PDT by Reeses
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-31 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson