4 ms·

"patients wanting something even if their infections are viral" What the market needs is a placebo anti-biotic. One thats totally wasted by resistance so it w

by VLM 12y ago

"patients wanting something even if their infections are viral" What the market needs is a placebo anti-biotic. One thats totally wasted by resistance so it won't hurt anything, and is reasonably cheap. Give it some nasty digestive system "effects" as a special gift to patients dumb enough to demand a pill against medical advice. Something that is, in fact, an antibiotic, so when they go home and look it up on wikipedia they don't freak out when they find out what a sucrose pill is. Maybe a homeopathic dose of it, so counter-reactions are rare and minimal.

jrockway 12y ago
"First, do no harm" is somewhat incompatible with dumb, demanding patients, unfortunately.
- Fomite 12y ago
  Medical ethics are also very patient focused - it's hard to deal with situations that are good for this patient but bad for hypothetical future patients.