3 ms·
To help, spread this message: you often don't want an antibiotic. If you have a viral infection, taking an antibiotic is like setting mousetraps to kill mosqui
by nathan_long 14y ago
To help, spread this message: you often don't want an antibiotic.
If you have a viral infection, taking an antibiotic is like setting mousetraps to kill mosquitos.
Meanwhile, your unnecessary antibiotic 1) has side effects, 2) costs money, 3) helps breed superbugs.
Many patients feel that "if I waited 2 hours to see the doctor, he/she had better give me something." Many doctors cave to these demands. We need to stop both.
- tomjen3 14y agoWhat we really need is something that can do to viruses what penicillin did to bacteria. And we need some serious work on bacteriophages. Those little buggers are _awesome_ and have a faster evolution than bacteria.
- tsotha 14y agoThat evolution part is the problem. There's a chance we'll breed superviruses in our effort to stop supergerms. As a practical matter, it's nearly impossible to breed therapeutic quantities of a virus without having a wide range of mutations present. We'll probably end up using phages because we won't have any other choice. But they won't be as safe as antibiotics.