Re: herbs > antibiotics > health care

show of hands. how many on this list are or have been employed by the health care-industrial complex?
i spent a good bit of time there myself, beginning with the onset of medicaid [federal government] in the late 60s to covering the politics of health for national journal in the 70s to running migrant-worker clinics in the 80s to writing medicare coding manuals in the early 90s. i was never so glad to change career fields as i was the day i became editor of corporate governance digest in 1992.

from there to running a landscape nursery data base was easy--although there was that 9-month detour when i worked for a circus.


At 03:34 PM 1/2/03, you wrote:
I would recommend to all interested in a cross cultural view of this issue that they find the (likely out of print) book - Medicine and Culture: Varieties of Treatment in the United States, England, West Germany, and France, by Lynn Payer. This book explores the interesting fact that the above countries have equivalent life expectancies, but that medical treatments differ enormously.
Cathy
On Wednesday, January 1, 2003, at 06:51 PM, Melody wrote:

The absolute worst offenders with antibiotics are consumers and
practitioners who demand and allow treatment for viral illnesses such as
the common cold with antibiotics that are meant only for bacterial
illnesses. What do you suppose we are doing to ourselves with
antibacterial handsoaps, lotions, plastics, sponges, dish detergents,
toys, etc....Exposing every day germs to antibacterial agents such as
these is insane!!! The human body is a host to multitudes of bacterial
strains that are supposed to be there! Killing them off-- this is what
allows supergerms to breed. That and the fact that most people who are
prescribed a ten day course of antibiotics only bother to take it for
half of the prescribed ten days...thus killing off only the body's
normal bacteria while allowing the proliferation of the bad bacteria to
become supergerms that take over and cause superinfections. And if
consumers don't want their meats/milks/vegetables/etc. pumped full of
antibiotics then why aren't more people actively pursuing other avenues,
including lobbying your local/state/federal legislators to outlaw this?
People like to complain alot about this, but don't really want to get
involved personally in stopping it...And as far as nurses are
concerned...good handwashing is the key to preventing most of their
troubles with bacteria but fully 70% of nurse's wedding bands/rings are
infected with strains of germs that could cause serious problems for
thier patients because they fail to do it well enough...And I can't
speak for other nurses, but I always keep my face well away from any IV
bag I'm spiking just on principle!!


Melody, IA (Z 5/4)

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jsinger@igc.org

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