New Study Sheds Light on Reactions to Antibiotics

The story I just read on abcnews.com starts out this way:

Bad reactions to antibiotics, mostly allergic ones, send people to U.S. emergency rooms more than 140,000 times each year, government researchers reported on Wednesday. The findings offer another reason for doctors to limit their use of the drugs, which are overused in the United States, the team at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. "This number is an important reminder for physicians and patients that antibiotics can have serious side effects and should only be taken when necessary," said the CDC's Dr. Daniel Budnitz, who led the study.

140,000 emergency room visits! Those are just the ones that are reported. Two super popular antibiotics, penicillin and amoxicillin, accounted for HALF the reactions. The study says that 78% of the visits were due to allergic reactions, and the remaining 22% were caused by errors.
An estimated 100 million antibiotic prescriptions are written every year. A lot of studies say that more than half of those prescriptions are unnecessary. I take it a step further, I say they are unnecessary AND harmful. Most times, antibiotics are prescribed for viruses. Antibiotics are absolutely useless for viruses. They are intended for bacterial infections, not viral. In regards to this, the following quote from the article really stood out:

...doctors still often believe their patients are exceptions to the rule and continue to write the prescriptions.

Although antibiotics are common, they are not safe. Every drug has side effects, you just don't know how they may affect you...and often times, until it's too late. Don't be another statistic. Only take medications when it is absolutely necessary, for emergency purposes. Give your body and chance to heal. God designed your body to heal. Give it a chance.

To read the whole story, check out the link below:

Study Finds 140,000 Bad Reactions to Antibiotics

Blackbox Warnings for Antibiotics

If you're living and breathing, chances are you have taken or have been prescribed antibiotics. I have. During my lifetime, I've been on countless rounds of antibiotics. Why? Well, because they're so accepted. Antibiotics are assumed to be safe and something that many assume always helps. What I didn't realize until I got older and started researching these things myself is that antibiotics are not always safe, necessary, or helpful. More often than not, they are over-prescribed and can be extremely dangerous. Because of the pressure many MDs feel to help complaining patients, they often prescribe antibiotics even when they know they won't help. You see, antibiotics are designed to help bacterial infections; however, they are often prescribed for viral...and they are absolutely useless for that. In those cases, they do WAY more harm than good.

I'm sure you've seen the news stories about superbugs which are being created by resistance to antibiotics. Because we, as a society, have over-prescribed and over-taken antibiotics, they are being rendered useless. We are creating much more dangerous superbugs which laugh at our antibiotics. Sad, but true.

I'm sure you've heard all of these things, whether you have chosen to heed the warnings or not, I don't know. What you may not know, though, is that some antibiotics are actually killing people. I read about some of these antibiotics in a Reader's Digest magazine a few months back and did a post about it. Now antibiotics are in the news again. This time because the FDA has ordered 'black box' warnings on some of these drugs. For those who don't know what 'black box' warning labels are, they are the strongest warnings issued by the FDA when it comes to medications. It's serious stuff because you may already know the FDA doesn't issue many (enough) serious warnings about medication, and when they do, it's often slow coming. Anyway...

According to an article on cnn.com, "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration Tuesday ordered the makers of certain antibiotics to add a "black box" label warning -- the FDA's strongest -- to alert patients of possible tendon ruptures and tendonitis." The article says that in some of the cases where this happened, there was absolutely no warning. Scary, right?

The article goes on to say, "Public Citizen, founded in 1971 by consumer activist Ralph Nader, said more than 400 cases of tendon rupture and more than 300 cases of tendonitis in patients using fluoroquinolones were reported between November 1997 and December 2007.

"Because only a small fraction of cases are typically reported to the FDA, the actual number of ruptures and other tendon injuries attributable to the antibiotic is much higher," the group said."

As I say often, always weigh the benefits and risks of any medication you take. There is no such thing as a safe medication. Every single one carries some sort of side effect(s). AND research, research, research. Check out how other people have responded. And, give your body a chance to heal itself. That's the way God designed it.

Blessings to you!!!