Isn't this a given? I mean, that all sorts of viruses and diseases will develop that we can't treat due to resistance and/or people being overexposed to antibiotics? Maybe the TB vaccine will come through.
Someone in my family has pretty much burned through all the antibiotics so infections are very difficult to treat in him. Meanwhile, none of the family can hear me tell them about the amount of antibiotics they're all getting via beef and milk...
TB is scary shit though. There is a vaccine, fortunately, but in developing countries or populations with low vaxx rates for other reasons...let me put it this way. The vaccine currently in use (the only one we have) dates from 1921. As late as 1918, nearly twenty percent of all the deaths in France were from TB or TB-related complications. Pre-war figures were the same, so we probably shouldn't blame that on war-stress compromising the immune system.
Imagine a cough that gets into your lungs and tears them apart.
...How many cases of 'consumption' and so on do you remember from books and films and TV shows set in the past?
You seem pretty on the history of TB, so please bear with me a sec. For some reason I picked up this idea in high school English class that a famous author or poet, in the vein of Poe and around his timeframe, had something like TB and was treated with hot irons that they shoved down his esophagus to cauterize the lesions, and that he was undergoing these treatments even as he was dying and trying to finish his last work. I tried to google for whoever this was before I posted the story, and came up blank. Does this ring any bells to you?
And don't forget about opera - practically every heroine dies of 'consumption.' And they are always young. (Ok, I might be exaggerating a little bit, but not by much).
I know TB is around up. I know a couple people who have old/dormant cases and I know it's been an issue in libraries that serve the homeless communities. I just mean that this has been building toawrd this for decades so I'm not surprised.
I recall a National Geographic article about how many people in India go to the local "doctor" (not certified) and get as much medication as they can afford. The article said that will often be just 3 days of antibiotics which, of course, if ideal for strengthening the bug.
That's my fear as well. People are consuming much more of them than they think they are, and it makes it that much harder to treat them when they desperately need it.
Ask if they give their animals antibiotics as a matter of course. I know a local dairy where a cow isn't milked until a couple of weeks, IIRC, after the course of antibiotics is finished. I *think* organic milk and beef generally means no antibiotics but I don't think it's a sure thing unless stated.
It's perfectly fine to take antibiotics when you need them. Things like strep throat can turn into some really nasty stuff. It's the fact that people stop taking antibiotics when they start feeling better rather than when the prescription is done, and wanting them for every little cold that we start having problems.
YES. I work with adults with disabilities and once I took one of my clients to the doctor because his eye was all red - looked like he popped some blood vessels, which is what the doctor said it probably was. But then the doctor was like, "Here are some antibiotic eye drops just in case it's conjunctivitis." WTF? It was obviously NOT conjunctivitis, but that's okay, let's just hand out antibiotics "just in case."
Someone in my family has pretty much burned through all the antibiotics so infections are very difficult to treat in him. Meanwhile, none of the family can hear me tell them about the amount of antibiotics they're all getting via beef and milk...
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Imagine a cough that gets into your lungs and tears them apart.
...How many cases of 'consumption' and so on do you remember from books and films and TV shows set in the past?
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I was just thinking of this, how horrible a thing it is when it's widespread and untreatable.
See: the many losses to TB in the Keats family, and finally poor John dying at 26.
Jesus.
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I recall a National Geographic article about how many people in India go to the local "doctor" (not certified) and get as much medication as they can afford. The article said that will often be just 3 days of antibiotics which, of course, if ideal for strengthening the bug.
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This shit's scary. D:
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so is organic beef/milk okay then? Cause yeah, I can't do without my red meat
/themoreyouknow
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