• Question: Do you think that it is wrong that many doctors tend not to look at other cures to stop infection rather than give out antibiotics , even though the infection may not be severe ?

    Asked by charlo123 to Jen, Jill, Mel, Phil, Stef on 18 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Phil Rice

      Phil Rice answered on 18 Mar 2013:

      Hi Charlo123, this is quite a common problem. Some doctors find it easier to write a prescription for an antibiotic to get the patient out of the surgery, but we know that the vast majority of infections are viral and we should trust our 4 billion year-old immune system to cope with them. Again prescribing antibiotics in the way highlights fundamental gaps in the way we teach evolution.

    • Photo: Stefan Piatek

      Stefan Piatek answered on 19 Mar 2013:

      I couldn’t agree more with Phil, what’s more frustrating is that in some countries people can actually buy all of the medication themselves, so they might have a cold or a flu and think that they need antibiotics. Unfortunately, antibiotics will do nothing against them, but if you take antibiotics enough then bacteria will not be affected by it.

      There’s also a problem in the developing world where one person is given antibiotics for a serious illness but they might share most of them. That means that they’re taking too little to kill off the bacteria completely, giving the bacteria more room to also develop resistance to the antibiotics.

    • Photo: Melissa Brereton

      Melissa Brereton answered on 19 Mar 2013:

      This is a huge problem that we are facing as many of the antibiotics were discovered many years ago. I seem to remember I read somewhere that it was 20 years ago since the latest antibiotic was made. And the problem is that many of the bacteria are becoming resistant to it which means the do not die. Some people think it is because doctors give patients the drugs too frequently, but it is also probably because as the bacteria grow and divide, parts of their DNA alters so that they can become resistant to the antibiotics. I think as scientists we need to try and discover a new way of killing bacteria but this process can take up to 30 years and cost millions of pounds!

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