Thursday, February 9, 2012

The Peak of Antibiotic Validity

Regular readers know that yesterday's post pointed out some shocking facts about the health care system in the U.S.

That post dealt with how many people die or are maimed each day as a result of defects within that system.

That third largest killer within the U.S. scenario even applies to rich people with the very best health care insurance available.

That is, that post was not in any way a comment on the lack of access to the health care system, rather, it was a comment on what happens in a shocking number of cases following access to the system.

Today we will visit upon another defect in that system, which is the increasing disease exposure which that system is producing.

Specifically, the fetish-like overuse of antibiotics as a be all cure all for just about anything and everything, which said overuse is going to reach a peak, to then fit into the realm talked about in the book "The Peak of Everything":
The arms race between humanity and disease-causing bacteria is drawing to a close—and the bacteria are winning. The latest evidence: gonorrhea is becoming resistant to all standard antibiotic treatment ... If it seems to you that the drumbeat of bad news with respect to antibiotic resistance has become louder and more insistent in the past few years, you would be right ... Researchers reported in January that they had for the first time collected samples of E. coli bacteria from the Antarctic with particularly dangerous drug-resistance genes.
(Scientific American). This is the result of the medical system in America willfully ignoring years of warnings, much like the congress, presidents, and big business having ignored of years of warnings about global warming dangers.

It is quite possible that we destroy the good bacteria, a.k.a., microbes, when "we", i.e., Dr. Strangelove,  strafe and cluster bomb our bodies to rid ourselves of one pathogen.

Like the millions of innocent men, women, and children MOMCOM kills in the oil wars, then calls those human beings "collateral damage", MOMCOM may just be making collateral damage of all of us.

The next post in this series is here.




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