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To: neverdem
Stupid,ignorant Americans simply will not accept certain things about their health and the US heath care system.Among them are:

Just because you get hit on the head with a wiffle ball,it's unlikely that you need a Neurosurgeon.

Just because you have an earache at 2AM,it doesn't mean that you should call 911 to take you to an Emergency Room.

Just because you have the sniffles,it doesn't mean that you need an antibiotic.

Spineless physicians and selfish patientsare largely responsible for drug resistant bacteria in this country.

6 posted on 12/02/2005 3:32:01 PM PST by Gay State Conservative
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To: Gay State Conservative
Spineless physicians and selfish patientsare largely responsible for drug resistant bacteria in this country

Many people don't know that antibiotics aren't effective against viruses, and some doctors are still willing to dispense unnecessary antibiotics just to keep a patient happy. Two people who I worked with in FL in the 1970s would run to a nearby walk-in clinic to get a penicillin shot whenever they got a sore throat or the sniffles. Their mild cold would run it's normal course in a few days and they were then OK. Then they would swear that the shot had kept them from coming down with the flu. Of course the doctor at the clinic knew that antibiotics don't cure a cold or flu, but he gave the shots anyway just to placate the patients I suppose.

It seems to me that the responsible thing for that physician to have done would have been to tell the patient that he had a cold which no antibiotic would cure, so just go home and take aspirin or an over the counter remedy to relieve the symptoms.

I tried to tell those guys that the shots they got were simply acting as a placebo and they were paying for a useless shot, but they wouldn't believe it. Multiply those cases by a factor of countless millions of unnecessary antibiotic pills and shots over the course of 5 or 6 decades and you end up with lots of drug-resistant strains of bacteria.

7 posted on 12/03/2005 7:12:08 AM PST by epow ("Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people" Prov. 14:34)
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