I’ve read that our use of antibiotics has led to more resistant strains of TB and other infectious diseases. This is one drawback to modern medicine.
There have been a lot of articles about overprescription of antibiotics, such as this one from the CDC:
Excellent point Lissa. Another part of the problem (as it relates to allegies) are trends in landcaping.
Relevant quote:
Great topic for discussion, btw. And ** hlanelee,** you beat me to it! 
I took Lamisil because my feet were so god damn ugly without it that I was literally embarassed to ever take off my shoes anywhere but inside my own house where nobody would see it.
If it makes me pathetic for buying into the commercial, then whatever. I dealt with that shit for ten years before I even knew there was anything that existed that could fix it.
Now I don’t get ingrown toenails and I’m not afraid for anyone to see my nasty feet because they’re not nasty anymore.
catsix, I’m really glad that you were able to find a medication to help. If your toenails were so bad that you wouldn’t take your shoes off, I would say that classifies as need. But my point is that the commercials imply that everyone who has toenail fungus should just be mortified by it and buy their medication. But I think a lot of cases just aren’t that bad. Heck, my fungus is so mild that if I’m wearing nail polish on my toes, you can’t even tell there’s anything wrong. Anyway, it’s not just the Lamisil that I’m talking about, I just used that as a convenient example that came quickly to mind. What about Valtrex? It’s a once-a-day medication to prevent and/or shorten the term of herpes outbreaks. The commercials would have you believe that anyone who is herpes positive should ask their doctor to prescribe this drug. Well, I’m herpes positive; had my first outbreak 15 years ago, have had two outbreaks since then. Do mild cases like mine really need daily treatment? Probably not. I certainly don’t take anything for it (I’m married and monogamous, so there are no further complications there). Mild cases of most maladies probably don’t need to be treated, but the commercials will never tell you that.
Having said that, do I think the marketing should be more regulated than it is? No. I think most folks can make up their own minds.
Have you ever had a mental illness? I’m not sure you grasp exactly how shit life can be with any of the currently recognised mental illnesses. Just letting people be “F-ed up” is cruel in itself, especially when there is treatment out there.
revolutionarily, either you misunderstood horhay_achoa when he (she?) said:
or I misunderstood. What I took this phrase to mean is that modern medicine seems a bit too hasty to diagnose a problem as being so severe that it needs drugs to treat it. By a “little bit f-ed up”, I assume the OP meant that some people who have emotional problems suffer pretty mild cases, and are probably better off treated with counseling, sunlight therapy, physical exercise, etc. rather than given psychotropic drugs. I think this may be true. After all, it’s quick to write a prescription, but the other, non-drug iniclusive treatments take a long time. Many people who take these drugs need them in order to live productive, happy lives. But for some, other treatments would be safer and more appropriate, but the doctors are prescribing drugs instead, because it’s easy.
Disclaimer: I’m not saying all doctors are like this. Just enough of them for it to create a problem.
Lissa,
For tb it was actually the underuse - people being inconsistent with the meds and incomplete courses - that has caused most drug resistance.
And yes, inappropriate antibiotic prescribing has been, and continues to be, a problem. But not relevant to the point you are commenting on.
The hypothesis goes one of two ways:
But in any case your speculation is well founded. No one argues however that allowing for serious bacterial infections and parasitic infections would be preferable. But a little early dirt isn’t a bad thing.
It seems I read somewhere that the outbreak of polio was caused, or at least helped, by too-good hygiene.
And aren’t some allergies, like food allergies, actually caused by exposure rather than a lack of exposure? I’m thinking of peanuts and the like.
Julie
I’ve heard something like this, too. Primarily about poison oak and ivy and the like. But I have no clue, beyond the already-mentioned, which allergies are caused by exposure and which to lack of exposure; I have even less of an idea why this should be true. Maybe some medical/scientific type will pop in and try to explain.
Yes. Food allergies in particular are felt to be more likely with early exposure before a baby has a competent gut barrier to allergens. And the presumed belief had been that the same was true for respiratory allergies too but research has not panned that out. Want to be less likely allergic? Spend your toddlerhood on a farm exposed to lots of pollens, molds and animal danders.
I would like to be less allergic. Next time I’m reincarnated, I’ll keep this advice in mind:D
Well, pollen allergies aren’t always caused by lack of exposure, but it is a current theory about how some people develop them. You can be born allergic to many things (food, pollen, etc). Modern food processing has quite a bit of cross contamination of the big food allergies (peanut, egg, wheat), which has caused more problems for allergic children as of late.
You cannot be born allergic to anything. You develop allergies after exposures. The issue is the finding that early exposure protects against allergies to aeroallergens while *delayed *exposure is associated with more allergies. Although some people think that it is really the animal fecal exposure on farms that is protective. Fighting off those fecal microbes and all. (Back to the elephants eating their dung …)
There are about a jillion articles on the net about the problems with asthma in the Bronx. There does seem to be a correlation between high levels of pollution and asthma.
This is from the Atlantic Monthly:
I would say that Bush is probably not known for being friendly to the environment or for trying to rid the world of industrial pollutants. There is plenty of blame to go around.
Do any of you know of any efforts by the current Presidential Administration to address the outrage that is going on in the Bronx?
Some of us who have been diagnosed “mentally ill” would indeed prefer to be left to our devices, “fucked up”, rather than being subjected to psychiatric medication, electroshock, and psychiatric incarceration. And we’re organized (well…for us, we’re organized :)) and we vote and we lobby.
Psychiatric pharmaceuticals have helped some people. They have hurt some people. They definitely have a very high incidence of iatrogenic complications (i.e., they cause temporary or permanent problems as side effects ranging from causing bad mood swings or psychosis themselves to permanent brain damage to death). Intelligent people who study their own condition and know their own meds well often find them indispendable. Yet others among us would as soon swallow rat poison.
I would prefer that those of you who choose to take psych meds that are prescribed for you, and who benefit from them, refrain from speaking as if on behalf of all the psychiatrically diagnosed. It is a rare post of mine that denies that psychiatric medicine can ever do anyone any good. There is scant likelihood that psychiatric pharmaceuticals will be made illegal or otherwise rendered unavailable. In contrast, the threat of having them imposed on the unwilling is real and current, and the damage done is genuine at the physical, political, and psychological levels.
Asthma does not develop in millions of people overnight. Anyone who traces all current health problems to a president who has only been in office for a mere three years is remarkably proud of his or her ignorance of biology.
However, these are exactly the same “minds” that make sure that astrologers and the Weekly World News stay in business.
Now, don’t be mean.
Just because the young lady is wrong about something doesn’t mean she takes pride in her “ignorance or bigotry.” That describes someone who steadfastly refuses to look at any viewpoint beyond their own, ignoring any evidence that contradicts their views.
For all you know, as soon as** horhay_achoa** points out the logical failings of ther opinion to her, she’ll give a little embarassed smile and say, “I never thought of it that way.”