Articles by Dr. Erdman are for informational purposes, and are not to be taken as specific medical advice.
In today’s world of medicine the use of antibiotics is as
common as drinking water. Every cough, sniffle and earache elicits an antibiotic
prescription from the doctor. If that isn’t enough, veterinarians treating
animals are much the same. The meat you buy at the grocery is commonly loaded
with antibiotics, given solely to keep the flock of hundreds and thousands of
chickens well enough to kill them faster.
This abuse of antibiotics is causing irreparable harm.
There are many scientists sounding the warning that we are
at the end of the age of antibiotics. More and more bugs are becoming resistant
to the drugs we have been overusing, and drug companies are not searching for
more. Drug companies are interested only in selling lots of people expensive
drugs. Heart drugs, cancer drugs and psychotic drugs garner $10,000 to $80,000
per patient per year. Antibiotics only register in at a few hundred dollars per
patient.
The threat of having no antibiotics available is very real!
According to a report titled “Antibiotic Resistance Threat Report” published by
the CDC this year, 2 million adults and children become infected with
antibiotic resistant bacteria each year, and at least 23,000 of them die as a
direct result of those infections. Even more die from complications. The death
toll is just a best guess, and the real numbers are likely much higher.
Hospitals are not required to report outbreaks of antibiotic
resistant bacteria, unlike in the EU, where they do track such problems. We, in
the US, bury our heads because medicine does not want you to know their
failures.
According to the ISDA (Infectious Disease Society of
America), just one organism, MRSA, kills more Americans each year than
emphysema, HIV/AIDS, Parkinson’s and homicides…combined!
Our modern food system is rife with overuse and
inappropriate use of antibiotics. This abuse is responsible for creating the
superbug crisis in which we find ourselves.
The agriculture industry accounts for 80% of all antibiotic
use in the United States. Some 24.6 million pounds of antibiotics are given to
livestock in the US every year for purposes other than treating disease! What?
If not to treat disease, then why give them? The main reason is to make animals
grow bigger, faster. Other parts of the world have banned this abuse, but not
the good old USA. Did you know eighty different antibiotics are allowed in your
milk? If that isn’t cause enough to find a farmer who doesn’t use them, I don’t
know what is. You’re are eating those antibiotics, slowly causing resistance in
the pathogens you contact. Then, when you may actually need an antibiotic, they
just don’t work.
The meat grown using those drugs flows right to you. The
National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) found antibiotic
resistant bacteria in 81% of ground turkey, 69% of pork chops, 55% of ground
beef, and 39% of chicken purchased in grocery stores in 2011. Consumers of the
meat should be very worried about the meat bought from everyday supermarkets.
The organisms found in the meat cause food borne illnesses and other
infections. Worse, they spread antibiotic resistance, which threatens to bring
us ever faster into the post antibiotic era.
You say an era beyond antibiotics will never happen? Think
again. Medicine is already resorting to old drugs, discontinued for a reason,
to treat end stage infections as a last resort. Another procedure being tried
is actually cutting out the infection, little part by little piece, as it
spreads. This is being done today because no drug touches some of these
terrible infections.
Dr. Mercola suggests three points as a solution to our
situation. First, we need better infection prevention, focusing on
strengthening your immune system. Secondly, we need a more responsible use of
these drugs for people and animals. Third, more innovative approaches to
treatment of infection from all branches of science, natural and allopathic
must be recognized.
There are many natural therapies to treat infection, and
most of them put antibiotics to shame. Natural compounds such as garlic,
cinnamon, oregano extract, colloidal silver, manuka honey, probiotics, fermented food, Echinacea and vitamin D are
all things to try before antibiotics.
The other basic element is keeping your own immune system in great working order.
Eat properly, exercise and manage stress appropriately. Do not take an
antibiotic at every sniffle and head cold, even if the doctor prescribes it.
Most colds are viral, so antibiotics have no effect anyway. Use them wisely,
and sparingly.