Jessie Kopp's response to The Antibiotic Paradox, chapter 9

This chapter outlined the true DEMAND that consumers have for antibiotics. I was unaware at how serious this issue really is. After reading all of the accounts of patients trying to force their docters into writing prescriptions, I was shocked. Individuals think that they are able to diagnose their own illnesses probably with some help from the internet. Once they have their mind set, it will be extremely hard to argue with them.

While patients' behaviors was surprising, I was more astonished by the stories regarding physicians' actions. It seems that if you ask correctly or strongly enough you should be able to get an antibiotic from multiple docters. I couldn't believe the stories about people feigning illnesses for research or news purposes and obtaining antibiotics. In Iran, the student that feigned illness was even diagnosed as having severe or chronic illnesses. This makes me question the training of these docters as well as their ethics. Patients need to be able to trust their docters to diagnose and treat them appropriately. To this end,

I believe that there should be more stringent testing of illnesses. In one of the previous chapters, I recall Levy saying that docters are required to take cultures to determine bacterial infections. However, none of the stories in this chapter showed that docters took these precautions to ensure their diagnoses were correct. I also think by taking cultures docters could prove to demanding patients that they do not need antibiotics. The evidence would be in the results instead of my opinions against yours.

I know that I have said this in previous posts. I truly believe that widespread general education could help curve the problem of antibiotic resistance. If the public knew they could be causing themselves more harm by stockpiling antibiotics and misusing them than good, they may change their habits.