Michael Aanes' reading response to chapter 5 of The Antibiotic Paradox

I really found the examples in this chapter interesting. It really describes how the general public world wide has such a limited knowledge of the effects of antibiotics and what can happen when you use them and don't need them. One of the most disturbing things I found in this chapter was that doctors will prescribe antibiotics when they are not needed for the fear of loosing a patient to another doctor. Personally, I really like my doctor in the fact that he makes sure that antibiotics are needed. A great example was after my vacation last week, I started to come down with symptoms of some sort of respritory infection. After going in yesterday after not being able to breath, hacking up all sorts of crap, a moderate fever and fatigue, he ran a multitude of tests and chest x-ray to ensure that antibiotics were warranted instead of just giving me an antibiotic. I am aware of the hypocratic oath that doctors need to adhere to and I think that there should be something in that that they will not just hand out antibiotics without knowledge that they are warranted. If all doctors held to this, it would really reduce the amount of antibiotic abuse by patients doctor shopping until they find a doctor that will give them what they want. This is something I struggle with with chemically dependent people that doctor shop for narcotic pain medications. Like some of the other posts, the easy availability of antibiotics in other countries is startling. This was something observed in Tijuana, Mexico. You just cross the boarder in Souther California into Tijuana, walk into a pharmacy and can walk out with basically any drug you want. I am unaware of any changes to this in the last 9 years though.