OTC Antibiotics: A Bad Idea

By Dr. Evelyn Higgins

The health care crisis stems from the bottom up. That is the foundation of our thinking. We are entrenched by the thoughts that the pill is the answer to every health problem. Let's trace the roots of that origin. We use a disease model for health care in this country - backed by a $50 billion pharmaceutical marketing budget. Given those two facts, why would any citizen think any differently than this: live as though your health was a given, wait to get sick, take a pill, wait to get better, and the best part is that there is no personal responsibility involved. We even give out FREE antibiotics in our stores as incentives to get shoppers. We even have the budget to have the free antibiotic commercials to play during prime time television advertising slots - free and they still have a budget for it.

The reality of free antibiotics is a serious mistake. It has been called "well-intentioned but obviously ill-advised." Well-intentioned by whom? The disease specialists at the CDC are painfully aware of the damage being done by antibiotics abuse. Serious problems for all of society arise when the dispensing of free antibiotics creates drug-resistant strains of bacteria. Such a situation alarms infectious disease specialists who say they have been fighting for years to reduce the demand for antibiotics. Years of physicians' education coupled with public education.

Look at the big picture here. If we never offer an alternative, the demand will never be reduced. Doctors have even said they prescribe them for patients with a cold, where antibiotics are not the drug of choice, simply because they don't work on viruses just to "shut a patient up" because they went to the doctor to obtain a prescription, plain and simple. But of course they do. We tell them they need it. We bombard them with advertising. Health care crisis, indeed! How will we ever rise from our current economic situation if we never change the fundamentals of our problem: prescription reliance? If we continue to prescribe unnecessary drugs to patients who ask their doctors for them, there will always be a budget deficit in the health care sector. [more...]