Antibiotics and Children
A very important issue concerning the children of today is the excess prescribing of antibiotics and the dangers that are being created. Everyday, more and more children are being prescribed any easy solution to a very tough problem. There is a constant push from pharmaceutical companies, parents, and massive marketing companies to try the next antibiotic remedy, but as we look towards the future and the diseases that can be created by this quick fix, we should turn to our attention to alternatives remedies. What is so terrible about this situation is that the worst-case scenario of the effects of the mass doses of antibiotics they ingest is an untreatable bacterium that is immune to the treatments we are aware of. That may not sound so bad until you think about the number of children around the world that could die from this bacterium. It would most definitely be a catastrophic event if a portion of the earth's population at that early of an age were to be erased. It would be a human-induced bubonic plague of the twenty-first century and it is really not that far from becoming a reality. In a study done in 1992, there were over sixty million different oral antibiotic prescriptions were giving to people under the age o
Recently, bacteria that commonly infect children and adults (like streptococcus pneumonia and staph) have become progressively resistant to antibiotics (Napoli). 5 doses) during the first three days of illness than in the amoxicillin group (a mean of 1. They have introduced a massive ad campaign one-fifth larger than normal in the industry and have spent nearly 39% of its sixteen billion in revenue on marketing expenses (Peterson). Some who could have been previously treated with an oral antibiotic at home now have to be admitted to hospitals and treated with intravenous antibiotics (More Drugs . Always monitoring what the profit margin will be and how they will be able to leverage this prescription in the particular market they were looking for (Pfizer). Usually, if doctors are willing to take time to explain the differences between viral and bacterial diseases, parents will be more satisfied with the interaction, and children will be spared the harmful effects of unnecessary antibiotics (More Drugs . As stated before, antibiotics are effective only in bacterial infections and not in viral infections. In fact, studies show that doctors are more likely to prescribe an antibiotic when the parent pushes for that drug. Damoiseaux of University Medical Center, Utrecht, Netherlands, and colleagues conducted a trial in which half the children were given amoxicillin, the standard, first-choice antibiotic (Berger). Pfizer, the largest drug company in America, was probably the first in the industry to transform itself so clearly from a research-driven company to one that operates more like Proctor and Gamble, the maker of the detergent Tide (Pfizer). These are people that are creating medicine.
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