Would you beg your doctor for drugs that:
•Have a 5% to 25% chance of causing diarrhea?
•Land at least one in every 1,000 users in the emergency room?
•Help only about one in 4,000 patients avoid a serious complication?
•Do nothing to relieve your symptoms?
If you've answered no, congratulations: You've decided to stop demanding
Antibiotics for colds, flu and similar illnesses. And you've demonstrated what some doctors suspect: The best way to break patients of their dangerous, expensive addiction to unneeded
Antibiotics is to focus on the personal risks and benefits — which are becoming clearer, thanks to recent research.
The message, in a nutshell: "There's a very small chance this
Antibiotic will help you, but a much bigger risk that it will hurt you," says Jeffrey Linder, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital.
Health educators have struggled to convince the public that
Antibiotics are useless for colds, influenza, most sore throats and the vast majority of bronchitis cases. That's because those illnesses are caused by viruses. Antibiotics kill only bacteria.
They've also told people that every time they take unneeded antibiotics, they encourage the growth of bacterial strains that resist antibiotics and can spread through households and communities, creating hard-to-control "superbugs."
Result: "We're not getting anywhere," Linder says. Half of
Antibiotic prescriptions still go to people with viral illnesses. Many doctors believe antibiotics satisfy these patients, prevent some complications and do little or no harm, he says.
the rest...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/painter/2009-01-11-antibiotics-side-effec...
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