Strictly speaking antibiotics should be given to people or animals when they are seriously sick but they are not necessary for minor infections that a person can fight on their own. Unfortunately, antibiotics are being over-consumed and now they have caused the development of superbugs.People used to effectively fight infections. Now they get antibiotics even for minor infections like the ear ache starting from childhood. They also get antibiotics for viruses like those that cause colds and flu where they are completely ineffective and therefore unnecessary. Furthermore, there is the problem in which antibiotics are being routinely given to farm animals to prevent infections, and they find their way into human bodies through meats and dairy products.Two problems have developed because of the overuse of antibiotics. First, some people have not developed their immune system properly because their bodies have never been required to fight infections on their own. Secondly, superbugs have developed, meaning that certain strains of bacteria have become resistant to a number of antibiotics. Now we face real danger from drug resistant gonorrhea, staph and tuberculosis, to name just a few. These superbugs are not limited to hospitals as before but are now being found in communities. Here is how superbugs develop. When you take an antibiotic that you do not need (like when you have the flu), it destroys a wide variety of microbes in the body, including the good bacteria that control the growth of the harmful bacteria. Any bacteria that survived the drug now has a chance to grow and multiply fast without being limited by the good bacteria. These survivors are drug-resistant strains of the harmful bacteria in your body, called superbugs. As more and more people take unnecessary antibiotics, more drug resistant bacteria grow and spread. When people get sick with illnesses that normally respond to drugs, they do not respond to drugs anymore and people die. If bacterial infections are no longer treatable, it means that drug manufacturers must keep developing new drugs. Developing new drugs is not easy because it takes years of research to come up with a drug and then more years of testing the drug. It is basically difficult to keep up with superbugs. Do not encourage the growth of superbugs. Please refuse to take antibiotics for viral infections like colds and flu. Do not ask for antibiotics for your children when they have minor infections; let them fight and develop their immune systems. With strong immune systems they might survive the superbugs when they strike.
-Dr. John Palmer
Your Homewood Functional nutritionist
