Antibiotics. The common wisdom is, that we use them too much. Might be, that the opposite is true. A more massive poisoning of pathogens with antibiotics could push them over the edge, to the oblivion. This way, when we use the antibiotics reluctantly, we give them a chance to adapt and to flourish.
As far as I understand it, when giving antibiotics to a specific patient, doctors often follow your advice—they give them in overwhelming force to eradicate the bacteria completely. For example, they’ll often give several different antibiotics so that bacteria that develop resistance to one are killed off by the others before they can spread. Side effects and cost limit how many antibiotics you give to one patient, but in principle people aren’t deliberately scrimping on the antibiotics in an individual context.
The “give as few antibiotics as possible” rule mostly applies to giving them to as few patients as possible. If there’s a patient who seems likely to get better on their own without drugs, then giving the patient antibiotics just gives the bacteria a chance to become resistant to antibiotics, and then you start getting a bunch of patients infected with multiple-drug-resistant bacteria.
The idea of eradicating entire species of bacteria is mostly a pipe dream. Unlike strains of virus that have been successfully eradicated, like smallpox, most pathogenic bacteria have huge bio-reservoirs in water or air or soil or animals or on the skin of healthy humans. So the best we can hope to do is eradicate them in individual patients.
I know. But not long ago, nobody expected that a bacteria is to blame. On the contrary! It was postulated, that no bacteria could possibly survive the stomach environment.
The reason I asked is that I don’t understand what you’re saying in the original post.
If you mean that we’re not giving enough antibiotics to people with stomach problems, well, that’s why I answered that we are currently giving enough antibiotics to people with stomach problems—in particular, we’re giving them two antibiotics plus a proton pump inhibitor, which is clinically demonstrated to be enough to get rid of h. pylori.
If you mean we should be giving antibiotics for diseases that aren’t currently believed to be caused by bacteria, on the off chance that they will turn out to in fact be caused by bacteria like stomach ulcers were, it doesn’t really work like that. There are dozens of antibiotics, many of which are specifically targeted at specific bacteria. If we don’t know what bacteria are causing a disease, we can’t target it with antibiotics except by giving the patient one of everything, which is a good way to kill them. This is ignoring the economic implications of giving drugs that can cost up to thousands of dollars per regimen for conditions that we have no reason to think they’d help for, the ethical issues in giving drugs with side effects up to and including death when they might not be necessary, and the medical issues involved in helping bacteria build up antibiotic immunity.
If I’m misunderstanding you, you’re going to have to explain what was in your post above better.
The question of the original poster of this sub-thread was, what do we expect it might be, the public has no idea about, but it is convinced just the opposite. Something in that direction.
I responded, that we might be wrong in the administrating the antibiotics. That it might be better to use them MORE and not less, what is the usual wisdom. Maybe, a better internal hygiene would be better and not worse.
The question of the original poster of this sub-thread was, what do we expect it might be, the public has no idea about, but it is convinced jut the opposite. Something in that direction.
I responded, that we might be wrong in the administrating the antibiotics. That it might be better to use them MORE and not less, what is the usual wisdom. Maybe, a better internal hygiene would be better and not worse.
Antibiotics. The common wisdom is, that we use them too much. Might be, that the opposite is true. A more massive poisoning of pathogens with antibiotics could push them over the edge, to the oblivion. This way, when we use the antibiotics reluctantly, we give them a chance to adapt and to flourish.
It just might be.
Do you have a citation for that?
As far as I understand it, when giving antibiotics to a specific patient, doctors often follow your advice—they give them in overwhelming force to eradicate the bacteria completely. For example, they’ll often give several different antibiotics so that bacteria that develop resistance to one are killed off by the others before they can spread. Side effects and cost limit how many antibiotics you give to one patient, but in principle people aren’t deliberately scrimping on the antibiotics in an individual context.
The “give as few antibiotics as possible” rule mostly applies to giving them to as few patients as possible. If there’s a patient who seems likely to get better on their own without drugs, then giving the patient antibiotics just gives the bacteria a chance to become resistant to antibiotics, and then you start getting a bunch of patients infected with multiple-drug-resistant bacteria.
The idea of eradicating entire species of bacteria is mostly a pipe dream. Unlike strains of virus that have been successfully eradicated, like smallpox, most pathogenic bacteria have huge bio-reservoirs in water or air or soil or animals or on the skin of healthy humans. So the best we can hope to do is eradicate them in individual patients.
This is one example. Maybe as free as the aspirin antibiotics would do here:
Link
All serious cases of stomach/duodenal ulcer are already tested for h. pylori and treated with several different antibiotics if found positive.
I know. But not long ago, nobody expected that a bacteria is to blame. On the contrary! It was postulated, that no bacteria could possibly survive the stomach environment.
So what are you suggesting with that example? That we should pre-emptively treat all diseases with antibiotics just in case bacteria are to blame?
Read my original post, what I am saying. Above.
The reason I asked is that I don’t understand what you’re saying in the original post.
If you mean that we’re not giving enough antibiotics to people with stomach problems, well, that’s why I answered that we are currently giving enough antibiotics to people with stomach problems—in particular, we’re giving them two antibiotics plus a proton pump inhibitor, which is clinically demonstrated to be enough to get rid of h. pylori.
If you mean we should be giving antibiotics for diseases that aren’t currently believed to be caused by bacteria, on the off chance that they will turn out to in fact be caused by bacteria like stomach ulcers were, it doesn’t really work like that. There are dozens of antibiotics, many of which are specifically targeted at specific bacteria. If we don’t know what bacteria are causing a disease, we can’t target it with antibiotics except by giving the patient one of everything, which is a good way to kill them. This is ignoring the economic implications of giving drugs that can cost up to thousands of dollars per regimen for conditions that we have no reason to think they’d help for, the ethical issues in giving drugs with side effects up to and including death when they might not be necessary, and the medical issues involved in helping bacteria build up antibiotic immunity.
If I’m misunderstanding you, you’re going to have to explain what was in your post above better.
The question of the original poster of this sub-thread was, what do we expect it might be, the public has no idea about, but it is convinced just the opposite. Something in that direction.
I responded, that we might be wrong in the administrating the antibiotics. That it might be better to use them MORE and not less, what is the usual wisdom. Maybe, a better internal hygiene would be better and not worse.
The question of the original poster of this sub-thread was, what do we expect it might be, the public has no idea about, but it is convinced jut the opposite. Something in that direction.
I responded, that we might be wrong in the administrating the antibiotics. That it might be better to use them MORE and not less, what is the usual wisdom. Maybe, a better internal hygiene would be better and not worse.