I used to generally agree with Bill Maher

[yowolabi]

Originally posted by: rgwalt

Originally posted by: yowolabi

But most people don't take them for life threatening conditions. They take them because they feel bad, and don't want to wait or take the steps for their body to naturally heal itself. For Heath Ledger, for instance, not a single one of those drugs was keeping him alive. That's the case in the vast majority of people. I'm not referring to someone with diabetes taking insulin.

If you want an example of what i'm talking about, let's discuss fevers. When you get sick, your body naturally raises your temperature (fever), as part of the process of fighting the intruder. Bacteria/Viruses live optimally at your natural body temperature, and raising it helps to kill them and helps you expel them through sweating. But a large amount of people will take medicine to bring the fever down, interrupting the work of their immune system, and prolonging their illness. Also, the medicine they're taking is not a "cure". It's something meant to interrupt/change the natural processes of the body. From the body's perspective, it's as much a "poison" as anything that you consider unfit to consume, like chlorine.

The other problem is that people take medication long term to fix the symptoms, instead of finding out and fixing the root of the problem. When you feel bad, it's almost always because you're doing something wrong. In most cases it's your diet and your physical activity level. Even diabetes, which i mentioned earlier, would have never gotten to the life threatening part for the majority of people if they had the correct diet and exercise before the onset of diabetes. If you damage and ignore your body for long enough, it will become much worse at healing itself. The feeling of "pain" is to let you know that your body is injured and needs to be fixed, or it needs to be rested so it can fix itself. Yet many people's first reaction is to take a painkiller so they can ignore their body's message.

Diet happens to be another of Bill Maher's big issues, and they pretty much have to be connected. Their is an alternative to pills, but it's much harder, and usually requires you to be proactive instead of reactive. You don't have to go to the extreme of being a PETA member/vegetarian like him, however our diet in this country is insane. The best article i've read on what we should be eating was posted here.

I wasn't given any of the information about fevers and such from a doctor, which is the problem. Far too many doctors are willing to just prescribe medication to fix any problem. Mostly because of laziness, and partly because doctors and drug companies have a vested interest in selling you drugs indefinitely to help you cope with the problem, instead of helping it go away forever. Also if your doctor started lecturing you about the life changes you need to make your problem go away, a significant amount of people would simply go to another doctor that offers a quick fix pill.

Now, i'm not at Bill Maher's level, thinking that you should never take medicine. If you make a conscious decision that you're willing to trade long term health for short term comfort, that's up to you. You should do it with both eyes open, though.

Are you a doctor? If not, you don't have the necessary education to make some of these claims. For instance, fevers, while they are the body's natural defense against bacteria and viruses, can cause signifcant problems when they get too high. A fever of 99 F or 100 F is OK. A fever of 103 F or higher is actually dangerous and generally indicates that you are suffering from something your body can't handle. Do you know what people did before the days of antibiotics when they had such a fever? Many of them died.

Now, I'll agree with you that our society over-uses medication to hide symptoms. We over use antibiotics to treat viral infections that simply have to run their course. We stop taking antibiotics too soon, which create resistant infections. On the other hand, sometimes a headache is just a headache and in order to sleep or simply function normally, I need to take an asprin to make it go away. Or, when I have a cold and my sinuses hurt, my throat hurts, and I'm constantly draining and coughing, I take something to relieve the symptoms because if I don't, I won't be able to rest. My body needs rest to fight off the infection.

Now, I will agree with Maher with one qualification: Over a long enough timeline medication will kill you. You will eventually encounter a bad batch, use the wrong amount of medication, or have and adverse reaction to a new medication, and you will die. This assumes that an accident or natural causes don't do you in first.

R

You didn't say anything which is in real disagreement with me. If a fever is too high for too long, it obviously can become life threatening, at which point i've agreed that medicine is necessary. Most fevers will not get into the life threatening range.

I did not make one single claim which is incorrect. If you believe i did, cite a source, and i will cite one equally as credible. If you think that doctors have a monopoly on truth, you're deluded. Is a person automatically right on a medical question because he's a doctor? Even different doctors will all give you several different answers to the same question.

 

[yowolabi]

Originally posted by: Gibsons

You need to take a course on immunology, you're speaking from ignorance.

Point to what I said that's factually incorrect, prove it, and i'll be more than happy to acknowledge you're correct.

Or you can throw around "i know better than you" lines all day with nothing to back it up, your choice.

 

[AlienCraft]

You do know he's an entertainer, right? :shocked:

No science, medical, or technological breakthroughs coming from him. :roll:

You're lucky to get two good jokes in a row out of him . :laugh:

Get real.

 

[rgwalt]

Originally posted by: yowolabi

Originally posted by: rgwalt

Originally posted by: yowolabi

But most people don't take them for life threatening conditions. They take them because they feel bad, and don't want to wait or take the steps for their body to naturally heal itself. For Heath Ledger, for instance, not a single one of those drugs was keeping him alive. That's the case in the vast majority of people. I'm not referring to someone with diabetes taking insulin.

If you want an example of what i'm talking about, let's discuss fevers. When you get sick, your body naturally raises your temperature (fever), as part of the process of fighting the intruder. Bacteria/Viruses live optimally at your natural body temperature, and raising it helps to kill them and helps you expel them through sweating. But a large amount of people will take medicine to bring the fever down, interrupting the work of their immune system, and prolonging their illness. Also, the medicine they're taking is not a "cure". It's something meant to interrupt/change the natural processes of the body. From the body's perspective, it's as much a "poison" as anything that you consider unfit to consume, like chlorine.

The other problem is that people take medication long term to fix the symptoms, instead of finding out and fixing the root of the problem. When you feel bad, it's almost always because you're doing something wrong. In most cases it's your diet and your physical activity level. Even diabetes, which i mentioned earlier, would have never gotten to the life threatening part for the majority of people if they had the correct diet and exercise before the onset of diabetes. If you damage and ignore your body for long enough, it will become much worse at healing itself. The feeling of "pain" is to let you know that your body is injured and needs to be fixed, or it needs to be rested so it can fix itself. Yet many people's first reaction is to take a painkiller so they can ignore their body's message.

Diet happens to be another of Bill Maher's big issues, and they pretty much have to be connected. Their is an alternative to pills, but it's much harder, and usually requires you to be proactive instead of reactive. You don't have to go to the extreme of being a PETA member/vegetarian like him, however our diet in this country is insane. The best article i've read on what we should be eating was posted here.

I wasn't given any of the information about fevers and such from a doctor, which is the problem. Far too many doctors are willing to just prescribe medication to fix any problem. Mostly because of laziness, and partly because doctors and drug companies have a vested interest in selling you drugs indefinitely to help you cope with the problem, instead of helping it go away forever. Also if your doctor started lecturing you about the life changes you need to make your problem go away, a significant amount of people would simply go to another doctor that offers a quick fix pill.

Now, i'm not at Bill Maher's level, thinking that you should never take medicine. If you make a conscious decision that you're willing to trade long term health for short term comfort, that's up to you. You should do it with both eyes open, though.

Are you a doctor? If not, you don't have the necessary education to make some of these claims. For instance, fevers, while they are the body's natural defense against bacteria and viruses, can cause signifcant problems when they get too high. A fever of 99 F or 100 F is OK. A fever of 103 F or higher is actually dangerous and generally indicates that you are suffering from something your body can't handle. Do you know what people did before the days of antibiotics when they had such a fever? Many of them died.

Now, I'll agree with you that our society over-uses medication to hide symptoms. We over use antibiotics to treat viral infections that simply have to run their course. We stop taking antibiotics too soon, which create resistant infections. On the other hand, sometimes a headache is just a headache and in order to sleep or simply function normally, I need to take an asprin to make it go away. Or, when I have a cold and my sinuses hurt, my throat hurts, and I'm constantly draining and coughing, I take something to relieve the symptoms because if I don't, I won't be able to rest. My body needs rest to fight off the infection.

Now, I will agree with Maher with one qualification: Over a long enough timeline medication will kill you. You will eventually encounter a bad batch, use the wrong amount of medication, or have and adverse reaction to a new medication, and you will die. This assumes that an accident or natural causes don't do you in first.

R

You didn't say anything which is in real disagreement with me. If a fever is too high for too long, it obviously can become life threatening, at which point i've agreed that medicine is necessary. Most fevers will not get into the life threatening range.

I did not make one single claim which is incorrect. If you believe i did, cite a source, and i will cite one equally as credible. If you think that doctors have a monopoly on truth, you're deluded. Is a person automatically right on a medical question because he's a doctor? Even different doctors will all give you several different answers to the same question.

You did not qualify your statement about fevers, I did. I have had several life threatening fevers in my lifetime. However, any one of those infections could have killed me had it not been for medicine. Your original post does not qualify what is "good" and what is "bad", but seems to lump most everything into the "bad" catagory. I realize that you have a more holistic view of medicine, which is great. I think people and doctors would benefit from a view point like yours. Exercise, a healthy diet, and a healthy lifestyle are critical to good long-term health. However, be careful when saying all medicines are poisons and all fevers are good, which is how your post reads to me.

I don't think doctors have a "monopoly on truth". However, the medical profession has developed over many years of study and research. If I'm sick and I have the choice of talking to my mechanic or my doctor, I'm going to get my advice from my doctor. I realize that doctors are people and can be and will be wrong. However, doctors are educated in their profession. I am not educated in their profession. Therefore, their advice is inherently worth more than whatever I think.
For example, if I have kidney stones it could be due to a genetic predisposition and not due to my diet. No matter how much water I drink (and milk I do not drink) my kidney stones may never go away on their own and will require treatment. The danger in self diagnosis and treatment is that you aren't aware of the body of medical knowledge that can point towards more serious underlying causes of simple symptoms.

R

 

[91TTZ]

Originally posted by: Squisher

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: Squisher
I think we should go back in time when just eating good natural foods and getting good exercise kept us alive to the ripe old age of 45.

You do realize that ~45 used to be the average life span for a human, not the ripe old age that a healthy adult was expected to live, don't you?

If you have a hard time understanding that, you need to take into account that a good percentage of infants either died at birth or in the first couple years of their life.

If 3 children are born, 1 living to 70, the other to 74, and the other dying at 1, the average lifespan of that generation was a little over 48 years old.

So, you don't believe there has ever been a time in the past where healthy adults lived to an average age of 45?

Are you saying that you believe the nonsense that you wrote?
You must have heard some statistic in the past and not understood it. Don't try to defend your error, because your statement was dead wrong anyway you try to spin it.

Be a man and admit your error instead of putting up a pathetic attempt to defend an obviously incorrect point.

 

[91TTZ]

Originally posted by: feralkid

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: 3NF
Most prescription drugs are invented to make someone money. Restless Leg Syndrome - you need a pill for that? Give me a break.

LOL

When I saw the first commercial for that, I thought to myself "You've got to be kidding me"

:roll:

No, no one was kidding you. Ask anyone who suffers from this. You may learn something.

I've always had a hard time sleeping and I do toss and turn all night. But I'm smart enough to realize that you don't need to take a pill for every little problem you have.

 

[vi edit]

Originally posted by: lyssword
http://www.worstpills.org/public/page.cfm?op_id=4 maybe he's talking about this?

also taken from http://www.fda.gov/CDER/DRUG/drugReactions/default.htm
However, other studies conducted on hospitalized patient populations have placed much higher estimates on the overall incidence of serious ADRs. These studies estimate that 6.7% of hospitalized patients have a serious adverse drug reaction with a fatality rate of 0.32%.2 If these estimates are correct, then there are more than 2,216,000 serious ADRs in hospitalized patients, causing over 106,000 deaths annually. If true, then ADRs are the 4th leading cause of death?ahead of pulmonary disease, diabetes, AIDS, pneumonia, accidents, and automobile deaths.

These statistics do not include the number of ADRs that occur in ambulatory settings. Also, it is estimated that over 350,000 ADRs occur in U.S. nursing homes each year.3 The exact number of ADRs is not certain and is limited by methodological considerations. However, whatever the true number is, ADRs represent a significant public health problem that is, for the most part, preventable.

You have to understand that in MANY of these situations you are dealing with patients that are already knocking on deaths door and in highly unstable situations to begin with. It's not as simple as "The Doctor/Nurse/Pharmacist screwed up". Yes that most certainly happens and people die from it. But those 100k+ deaths are a bit of a misleading statisitic.

 

[Squisher]

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: Squisher

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: Squisher
I think we should go back in time when just eating good natural foods and getting good exercise kept us alive to the ripe old age of 45.

You do realize that ~45 used to be the average life span for a human, not the ripe old age that a healthy adult was expected to live, don't you?

If you have a hard time understanding that, you need to take into account that a good percentage of infants either died at birth or in the first couple years of their life.

If 3 children are born, 1 living to 70, the other to 74, and the other dying at 1, the average lifespan of that generation was a little over 48 years old.

So, you don't believe there has ever been a time in the past where healthy adults lived to an average age of 45?

Are you saying that you believe the nonsense that you wrote?
You must have heard some statistic in the past and not understood it. Don't try to defend your error, because your statement was dead wrong anyway you try to spin it.

Be a man and admit your error instead of putting up a pathetic attempt to defend an obviously incorrect point.

I have heard both the your take on my statement and what people have erroneously taken out of life expectancy data. I was doing neither. And, I am not now spinning. I used the age of 45 because I wanted to with no attribution to any data. I'm sorry you took it wrongly. Is that manly enough for you?

 

[lyssword]

Originally posted by: vi_edit

Originally posted by: lyssword
http://www.worstpills.org/public/page.cfm?op_id=4 maybe he's talking about this?

also taken from http://www.fda.gov/CDER/DRUG/drugReactions/default.htm
However, other studies conducted on hospitalized patient populations have placed much higher estimates on the overall incidence of serious ADRs. These studies estimate that 6.7% of hospitalized patients have a serious adverse drug reaction with a fatality rate of 0.32%.2 If these estimates are correct, then there are more than 2,216,000 serious ADRs in hospitalized patients, causing over 106,000 deaths annually. If true, then ADRs are the 4th leading cause of death?ahead of pulmonary disease, diabetes, AIDS, pneumonia, accidents, and automobile deaths.

These statistics do not include the number of ADRs that occur in ambulatory settings. Also, it is estimated that over 350,000 ADRs occur in U.S. nursing homes each year.3 The exact number of ADRs is not certain and is limited by methodological considerations. However, whatever the true number is, ADRs represent a significant public health problem that is, for the most part, preventable.

You have to understand that in MANY of these situations you are dealing with patients that are already knocking on deaths door and in highly unstable situations to begin with. It's not as simple as "The Doctor/Nurse/Pharmacist screwed up". Yes that most certainly happens and people die from it. But those 100k+ deaths are a bit of a misleading statisitic.

Certainly, I don't believe taking a pill once in a while is dangerous, but juggling 10+ will make it likely to have error in prescription/adverse reaction. So Bill Maher is about 1/4th right .

 

[BoomerD]

Originally posted by: Tobolo

Originally posted by: feralkid

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: 3NF
Most prescription drugs are invented to make someone money. Restless Leg Syndrome - you need a pill for that? Give me a break.

LOL

When I saw the first commercial for that, I thought to myself "You've got to be kidding me"

:roll:

No, no one was kidding you. Ask anyone who suffers from this. You may learn something.

My girl has that. It doesn't bother her, but it sure as hell bothers me. Cant sleep during the night from Miss Kicks-a-Lot.

I've lived with "crazy legs" for years. Running lots of heavy equipment and cranes requires you to sit, but use lots of leg strength to operate pedal-controls like brakes and clutches. These are NOT like the brakes and clutches on your car, where only a couple of pounds of torque are sufficient...most of these are sprint-powered and require significant force to release/ lock. At night, I'd get home and my legs would quiver and shake as the muscles "unwound" from being used all day. Even now that I'm not working, if I'm kicked back in my "ambitious-boy" recliner, the leg muscles still start jumping like a frog leg in a frying pan...gets pretty dammed annoying.
I've NEVER thought it was bad enough to justify taking a dammed pill for however...

 

[Gibsons]

Originally posted by: yowolabi

Originally posted by: rgwalt

Originally posted by: yowolabi

But most people don't take them for life threatening conditions. They take them because they feel bad, and don't want to wait or take the steps for their body to naturally heal itself. For Heath Ledger, for instance, not a single one of those drugs was keeping him alive. That's the case in the vast majority of people. I'm not referring to someone with diabetes taking insulin.

If you want an example of what i'm talking about, let's discuss fevers. When you get sick, your body naturally raises your temperature (fever), as part of the process of fighting the intruder. Bacteria/Viruses live optimally at your natural body temperature, and raising it helps to kill them and helps you expel them through sweating. But a large amount of people will take medicine to bring the fever down, interrupting the work of their immune system, and prolonging their illness. Also, the medicine they're taking is not a "cure". It's something meant to interrupt/change the natural processes of the body. From the body's perspective, it's as much a "poison" as anything that you consider unfit to consume, like chlorine.

The other problem is that people take medication long term to fix the symptoms, instead of finding out and fixing the root of the problem. When you feel bad, it's almost always because you're doing something wrong. In most cases it's your diet and your physical activity level. Even diabetes, which i mentioned earlier, would have never gotten to the life threatening part for the majority of people if they had the correct diet and exercise before the onset of diabetes. If you damage and ignore your body for long enough, it will become much worse at healing itself. The feeling of "pain" is to let you know that your body is injured and needs to be fixed, or it needs to be rested so it can fix itself. Yet many people's first reaction is to take a painkiller so they can ignore their body's message.

Diet happens to be another of Bill Maher's big issues, and they pretty much have to be connected. Their is an alternative to pills, but it's much harder, and usually requires you to be proactive instead of reactive. You don't have to go to the extreme of being a PETA member/vegetarian like him, however our diet in this country is insane. The best article i've read on what we should be eating was posted here.

I wasn't given any of the information about fevers and such from a doctor, which is the problem. Far too many doctors are willing to just prescribe medication to fix any problem. Mostly because of laziness, and partly because doctors and drug companies have a vested interest in selling you drugs indefinitely to help you cope with the problem, instead of helping it go away forever. Also if your doctor started lecturing you about the life changes you need to make your problem go away, a significant amount of people would simply go to another doctor that offers a quick fix pill.

Now, i'm not at Bill Maher's level, thinking that you should never take medicine. If you make a conscious decision that you're willing to trade long term health for short term comfort, that's up to you. You should do it with both eyes open, though.

Are you a doctor? If not, you don't have the necessary education to make some of these claims. For instance, fevers, while they are the body's natural defense against bacteria and viruses, can cause signifcant problems when they get too high. A fever of 99 F or 100 F is OK. A fever of 103 F or higher is actually dangerous and generally indicates that you are suffering from something your body can't handle. Do you know what people did before the days of antibiotics when they had such a fever? Many of them died.

Now, I'll agree with you that our society over-uses medication to hide symptoms. We over use antibiotics to treat viral infections that simply have to run their course. We stop taking antibiotics too soon, which create resistant infections. On the other hand, sometimes a headache is just a headache and in order to sleep or simply function normally, I need to take an asprin to make it go away. Or, when I have a cold and my sinuses hurt, my throat hurts, and I'm constantly draining and coughing, I take something to relieve the symptoms because if I don't, I won't be able to rest. My body needs rest to fight off the infection.

Now, I will agree with Maher with one qualification: Over a long enough timeline medication will kill you. You will eventually encounter a bad batch, use the wrong amount of medication, or have and adverse reaction to a new medication, and you will die. This assumes that an accident or natural causes don't do you in first.

R

You didn't say anything which is in real disagreement with me. If a fever is too high for too long, it obviously can become life threatening, at which point i've agreed that medicine is necessary. Most fevers will not get into the life threatening range.

I did not make one single claim which is incorrect. If you believe i did, cite a source, and i will cite one equally as credible. If you think that doctors have a monopoly on truth, you're deluded. Is a person automatically right on a medical question because he's a doctor? Even different doctors will all give you several different answers to the same question.

Yes, you did.

 

[Gibsons]

Originally posted by: yowolabi

Originally posted by: Gibsons

You need to take a course on immunology, you're speaking from ignorance.

Point to what I said that's factually incorrect, prove it, and i'll be more than happy to acknowledge you're correct.

Or you can throw around "i know better than you" lines all day with nothing to back it up, your choice.

Sweating is not an immune defense mechanism. Pathogens are not "sweated out."

There are many diseases in which the immune response is worse than any damage the pathogen is doing and the best treatment is an imune depressant.

The role of fever in an immune response is still not really pinned down. Many if not most, pathogens replicate freely at the elevated temperature.

Not every pathogen's optimal temperature is 37C.

 

[Throckmorton]

Originally posted by: Squisher

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: Squisher
I think we should go back in time when just eating good natural foods and getting good exercise kept us alive to the ripe old age of 45.

You do realize that ~45 used to be the average life span for a human, not the ripe old age that a healthy adult was expected to live, don't you?

If you have a hard time understanding that, you need to take into account that a good percentage of infants either died at birth or in the first couple years of their life.

If 3 children are born, 1 living to 70, the other to 74, and the other dying at 1, the average lifespan of that generation was a little over 48 years old.

So, you don't believe there has ever been a time in the past where healthy adults lived to an average age of 45?

The whole "people used to die earlier" thing is a misinterpretation of average life expectancy.

For one thing, it depends on the period of history. During hunter/gatherer times people probably lived pretty long because they lived very healthy lifestyles. Agriculture and settling reduced lifespans by concentrating people, making disease easier to spread. Hygiene improved lifespans again and by 500 BC, people were living to their 90s IF they made it through war. And it's war and childhood death that caused life expectancy to be lowered for much of the history of civilization, compared to what the environment allowed

 

[Throckmorton]

Originally posted by: BoomerD

Originally posted by: Tobolo

Originally posted by: feralkid

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: 3NF
Most prescription drugs are invented to make someone money. Restless Leg Syndrome - you need a pill for that? Give me a break.

LOL

When I saw the first commercial for that, I thought to myself "You've got to be kidding me"

:roll:

No, no one was kidding you. Ask anyone who suffers from this. You may learn something.

My girl has that. It doesn't bother her, but it sure as hell bothers me. Cant sleep during the night from Miss Kicks-a-Lot.

I've lived with "crazy legs" for years. Running lots of heavy equipment and cranes requires you to sit, but use lots of leg strength to operate pedal-controls like brakes and clutches. These are NOT like the brakes and clutches on your car, where only a couple of pounds of torque are sufficient...most of these are sprint-powered and require significant force to release/ lock. At night, I'd get home and my legs would quiver and shake as the muscles "unwound" from being used all day. Even now that I'm not working, if I'm kicked back in my "ambitious-boy" recliner, the leg muscles still start jumping like a frog leg in a frying pan...gets pretty dammed annoying.
I've NEVER thought it was bad enough to justify taking a dammed pill for however...

They talked about RLS on the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe podcast. tp://www.theskepticsguide.org/

The host is a physician. I think his specialty is the muscular system. He said that RLS is indeed a real illness, and he learned about it long ago in med school. It's not shaking your leg because you're nervous

 

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: shocksyde
I'm watching his live show right now, and he just said something really strange.

He claimed that medication is bad for you. Even Penicillin. Is he out of his mind?

Heath Ledger came up and Maher said his death should teach everyone that all medication will eventually kill you. He completely overlooked the fact that it was the mixture of 6 different prescription drugs.

I'm actually ashamed to have liked him in the past based on this. What a complete moron.

See, we have these people in our society called entertainers. Some of them are called comedians. It's a subgroup of entertainers.

These folks go on stage and do an act. They don't always mean everything they say. Sometimes they say things just to get a reaction from the audience. This is called "stirring shit up".

Sometimes, people are really stupid and think that everything they hear or see in an entertainer's show are the actual personal beliefs of this entertainer. Such people end up confused in life as they should.


I still enjoy Bill Maher's comedy to a great extent.

 

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: Dirigible

Originally posted by: shocksyde

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: shocksyde

Originally posted by: sandorski
The vast majority of Prescription Drugs have nasty side effects. He is correct, but sometimes they are all that will help certain conditions.

Penicillin?

I haven't cared enough to do my own research, but I've heard liberal use of anti-biotics is promoting mutation and resulting in viruses and whatnot that are immune to traditional anti-biotics.
It's natural for every living thing to adapt to it's environment in order to survive. Over many generations of bacteria or viruses, it's not hard to believe that they'll eventually mutate to the point where penicillin has no affect.

Ok, so which scenario is worse:

1. Nobody takes antibiotics and bacteria run wild in your body
2. People take antibiotics and at some point in the future all bacteria become immune to it and then run wild in your body

Can't argue against that, but if we'd taken less of 'em, prescribed them less frivolously, option 2 would take longer to happen.

Actually, yes, you can easily argue against it.

The immune system is more than capable in most people of fighting off almost all bacterial infections. In fact, the natural bacteria on your skin, in your eyes, in your digestive tract, and covering every other square millimeter of your hide are part of the body's natural defense. Only about 5% of bacteria (known bacteria) are disease causing in humans, and only a small fraction of a percent are fatal. The rest, flora that we have evolved to carry around with us in abundance on a daily basis, actually helps fight infection because disease causing bacteria must compete for resources with the natural flora.


Anti-biotics *speed up* the process of our immune system overcoming a bacterial infection by weakening the bacteria immensely, which allows the immune system to get its work done more quickly. However, generally speaking, the only bacteria that survive anti-biotic treated disease processes are bacteria resistant to the antibiotic, and they go on to reproduce and found the next generation of organisms. Repeat over and over. Not a good pattern.


Antibiotics have their place, but they aren't and never were a free pass, and they're not a complete solution to bacterial illness. You would never be able to overcome a bacterial illness without your innate and adaptive immune systems (there are technically two immune systems...look it up), which is why bubble kids die to young despite the massive use of environmental controls and antibiotics to try and keep them alive.


So essentially, without antibiotics, people with weak immune systems die, and we as humans evolve to be a stronger species. We would never reach the point of "bacteria running wild in our bodies." With the use of antibiotics, we're able to keep those with poor immune response around.

Nothing, ever, no antiobiotic or anything, will ever compare to the human immune system for pure pathogen crushing power. Take an immunology course, and you'll be surprised exactly how hard core your body is when it comes to ruining the shit of ANYTHING that's not supposed to be in there.

Medications are not bad, but they're not being used wisely in this country either, largely due to the fact that there's big big BIG money in pharmacology of questionable ethics these days.

 

[Jeff7]

The immune system and viruses/bacteria have been at war for eons. Each makes incremental improvements to try to overcome the other. It was a two-sided war, fought at a sluggish pace.
Then we brought our intelligence into it, trying to both bolster the immune system with immunizations, and fight off the pathogens with natural and artificial chemicals. We became arms dealers in the war, but the enemy ramped up its pace of adaptation accordingly.
We're in the game; it's just turning out to be a bit more challenging than we'd anticipated. If the bacteria become resistant to all of our drugs, we'll be right back at square one anyway, pathogens vs immune system. The next step might be microscopic robots of some sort, to go in and "manually" clean house, rather than just using chemicals to get the job done.

 

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
The immune system and viruses/bacteria have been at war for eons. Each makes incremental improvements to try to overcome the other. It was a two-sided war, fought at a sluggish pace.

Not really. It was a very very one sided war. In all but a few situations (many of the diseases that we fear to a great extent, like Ebola or anything similarly severe and fatal), the human immune system will kick the everliving shit out of whatever pathogen was stupid enough to invade your tissues with a custom made, this-week-only (but we're keeping the blueprint on file), antibody carpet bombing of *massive* shock and awe with the virus's/bacteria's/parasite's name written on the side of it.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: ja1484

Originally posted by: Jeff7
The immune system and viruses/bacteria have been at war for eons. Each makes incremental improvements to try to overcome the other. It was a two-sided war, fought at a sluggish pace.

Not really. It was a very very one sided war. In all but a few situations (many of the diseases that we fear to a great extent, like Ebola or anything similarly severe and fatal), the human immune system will kick the everliving shit out of whatever pathogen was stupid enough to invade your tissues with a custom made, this-week-only (but we're keeping the blueprint on file), antibody carpet bombing of *massive* shock and awe with the virus's/bacteria's/parasite's name written on the side of it.

Many of them do. But some do a darn good job of causing lots of damage. I'll give you two: malaria and HIV. Massive shock and awe with HIV, except it's the virus that's doing it all, disabling the immune system as it goes about its business. I'm sure most of Africa would disagree with the idea that it's "all but a few situations" where the immune system kicks the everliving shit out of just about anything.

 

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Originally posted by: ja1484

Originally posted by: Jeff7
The immune system and viruses/bacteria have been at war for eons. Each makes incremental improvements to try to overcome the other. It was a two-sided war, fought at a sluggish pace.

Not really. It was a very very one sided war. In all but a few situations (many of the diseases that we fear to a great extent, like Ebola or anything similarly severe and fatal), the human immune system will kick the everliving shit out of whatever pathogen was stupid enough to invade your tissues with a custom made, this-week-only (but we're keeping the blueprint on file), antibody carpet bombing of *massive* shock and awe with the virus's/bacteria's/parasite's name written on the side of it.

Many of them do. But some do a darn good job of causing lots of damage. I'll give you two: malaria and HIV. Massive shock and awe with HIV, except it's the virus that's doing it all, disabling the immune system as it goes about its business. I'm sure most of Africa would disagree with the idea that it's "all but a few situations" where the immune system kicks the everliving shit out of just about anything.

Well, Africa would be wrong. Malaria and HIV are two situations. Compare the number "two" to the number of known viruses and bacteria.

I am not saying there aren't exceptions. There are. But they are exceptions.

 

[Mo0o]

Originally posted by: ja1484

Originally posted by: Jeff7
The immune system and viruses/bacteria have been at war for eons. Each makes incremental improvements to try to overcome the other. It was a two-sided war, fought at a sluggish pace.

Not really. It was a very very one sided war. In all but a few situations (many of the diseases that we fear to a great extent, like Ebola or anything similarly severe and fatal), the human immune system will kick the everliving shit out of whatever pathogen was stupid enough to invade your tissues with a custom made, this-week-only (but we're keeping the blueprint on file), antibody carpet bombing of *massive* shock and awe with the virus's/bacteria's/parasite's name written on the side of it.

Thats amsuing because the metaphor actually fits. SOmetimes the body gets caught in a quagmire that it can't seem to win yet cna't lose. It's just stuck in a persistent state of infection. Or the immune response canbe so extreme that collateral damage to the body leaves lasting effects. Endocarditis is a good example. If you just leavey our bodies to treat it , you might live, you might die but there will be a ton of collateral damage to your heart, especially at teh valves.

 

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: Mo0o

Originally posted by: ja1484

Originally posted by: Jeff7
The immune system and viruses/bacteria have been at war for eons. Each makes incremental improvements to try to overcome the other. It was a two-sided war, fought at a sluggish pace.

Not really. It was a very very one sided war. In all but a few situations (many of the diseases that we fear to a great extent, like Ebola or anything similarly severe and fatal), the human immune system will kick the everliving shit out of whatever pathogen was stupid enough to invade your tissues with a custom made, this-week-only (but we're keeping the blueprint on file), antibody carpet bombing of *massive* shock and awe with the virus's/bacteria's/parasite's name written on the side of it.

Thats amsuing because the metaphor actually fits. SOmetimes the body gets caught in a quagmire that it can't seem to win yet cna't lose. It's just stuck in a persistent state of infection. Or the immune response canbe so extreme that collateral damage to the body leaves lasting effects. Endocarditis is a good example. If you just leavey our bodies to treat it , you might live, you might die but there will be a ton of collateral damage to your heart, especially at teh valves.

These are more rare than common, but do occur. Let's not say, however, that if left to its own devices, the body will half-kill itself fighting an infection. This is not the case.


Typically speaking, the body only becomes so aggressive that it begins to cause collateral problems in "self" tissues when it cannot fight off the infection through the normal means.

The so called "nuke" solution, to create a metaphor of my own. If you can't beat 'em, take 'em down with you, even if it's a suicide mission.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: ja1484
Well, Africa would be wrong. Malaria and HIV are two situations. Compare the number "two" to the number of known viruses and bacteria.

I am not saying there aren't exceptions. There are. But they are exceptions.

As I said, yes, a majority of attempted attacks are dealt with by the immune system. But the fact that two different species are wreaking havoc throughout the world doesn't mean that they're undeserving of recognition. Millions of people still die each year from diseases. I don't think that the immune system's battle is entirely one-sided, or else we wouldn't see that sort of mortality rate.
You've got two armies - yours is armed with guns.
The enemy's is 100x larger than yours, and the majority of them only have sticks and stones. But it's that one guy out there who's got a tank who's going to be the problem. If the rest of his army is felled by your guns, he'll still be able to achieve victory.

 

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Originally posted by: ja1484
Well, Africa would be wrong. Malaria and HIV are two situations. Compare the number "two" to the number of known viruses and bacteria.

I am not saying there aren't exceptions. There are. But they are exceptions.

As I said, yes, a majority of attempted attacks are dealt with by the immune system. But the fact that two different species are wreaking havoc throughout the world doesn't mean that they're undeserving of recognition. Millions of people still die each year from diseases. I don't think that the immune system's battle is entirely one-sided, or else we wouldn't see that sort of mortality rate.
You've got two armies - yours is armed with guns.
The enemy's is 100x larger than yours, and the majority of them only have sticks and stones. But it's that one guy out there who's got a tank who's going to be the problem. If the rest of his army is felled by your guns, he'll still be able to achieve victory.

You're kind of missing the point. The immune system wins 99.99999etc % of the conflicts. That's one sided, period.

One sided does not mean the underdog never wins.

And it's not that one guy in the army has a tank - it's that there happen to be armies of tanks out there, though they're an extreme rarity.

Even then, it's not like we're without defense. HIV is only transmissible through relatively fragile mechanisms. HIV virus landing on your bare intact skin will have no effect other than to die in short order.

The immune system adapts and defends under different circumstances that are too numerous to count. The danger bugs are only dangerous when the wind blows the right direction for 'em...

 

[Geekbabe]

I've been feeling sub-acutely unwell for several weeks,plugged nose,cough,run down feeling.On wed I suddenly began to feel even worse while at work,I started also having pain and making frequent restroom trips.By thursday morning I was having chills that left me shaking like a leaf.

I was in my doctor's office by noon.. he feels I had some sort of virus that weakened my immune system and left me open for the bacterial infection he treated.I started zithromax a couple days ago and am already beginning to feel better..better enough to realise just how lousy I've been feeling for weeks.I let the 1st illness run it's course without seeking treatment
and ended up slammed down by the second illness.


I try to avoid unneeded pills but three cheers for doctors and medication when you need them and all the science that makes these things possible.