I’m sure that you’ve all heard the news about the latest killer bug that was discovered in Pennsylvania last week, but I’m not sure if everyone completely understands the potential ramifications of this obtuse announcement.
My life began just about the time that antibiotics started to catch on in this country. Yes, penicillin was discovered back in 1928, but just like everything science related in medicine, it took about 20 years for its use to become widely accepted.
As a kid my earaches, my bronchitis, and just about everything else that was infection related resulted in either a visit from or a visit to Dr. Colvin. He would perform his medical diagnostics, pick up what, as a small child, looked like a horse-sized hypodermic with its reusable needle, wipe it with a little alcohol, plunge it into the rubber topped medicine bottle, and draw the white antibiotic into the body of the instrument. He would squirt out any air and then plunge the dull needle into either my butt or my little arm.
I cried the first 50 or so times that this ritual took place, but by the time I was 10, the shots happened less often, and I had begun to toughen up a little. The injection pain was the same, but the reaction was limited because of the knowledge that I’d be feeling better soon from whatever was making me sick. It was magic.
Remember, I’m not a scientist or a physician, but close your eyes and imagine that it’s 1927. Imagine that your earache cannot be touched by Dr. Colvin’s magic needle. Worse than that, imagine that there are no antis that can touch your biotics. That, my friends, is no simple problem.
So, if there are now certifiably untouchable infections, we are potentially beginning a new reality of humankind where the actual thinning of the herd could begin. Doomsday can come in many forms: having government leaders who believe that the nuclear alternative is a viable option; total ignorance and denial of global warming leading to the lack of potable water and a limited food supply and starvation; or an asteroid. What, however, if the most common day-to-day paper cut or respiratory infection might put us or our loved ones in real peril?
Why am I writing this very disturbing column? I’m writing it because we truly have created a perilous and uncertain scenario for ourselves. Some of this has been because of what my friend Tony refers to as savage capitalism, in which the companies that produce soap products preyed on our ignorance and fears and made everything antibacterial thus creating more resistance in pathogens.
Then there were our kind-hearted or over-stressed medical professionals who simply said yes to every worried patient or parent’s request for antibiotics, even when an antibiotic was clearly not called for.
And finally, there were political decisions that have been made in the last several decades that have led to lost opportunity costs in not only education and infrastructure, but also in science and medicine. When we make decisions to be at war continuously, we immediately give up opportunities to direct more funds into future health and science cures.
Are there new antibiotics to be discovered out there in the rainforests, in the deep seas, and in remote caves? No doubt there are. But when we continue to dedicate more and more money to war or other forms of corporate greed, we limit our opportunities in other areas. We’ve seen serious cuts in research funding for the National Institutes of Health, the Center for Disease Control, and even military health defense. Creating war without funding war means that our bridges will fail, our schools will underperform, and we won’t have antibiotics. Every action has a reaction.
Please cover your mouth when you sneeze.
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