Abuse of antibiotics

The Health Division and National Antibiotics Committee's recent campaign against abuse of antibiotics by both doctors and the public, and possibly also by animal and fish farms, is very opportune considering the increasing number of potentially lethal antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections our general hospital is having to deal with.

There is another possible complication of antibiotic use. Some asthma experts have recently been wondering whether the increase of asthma cases in mainly developed countries these last few decades, might have something to do with the use of antibiotics in newborn babies and infants.

These scientists believe antibiotics may interfere with the proper development of the immune system, leading to asthma, a disease caused by abnormal responses of the immune system to a variety of environmental particles which are harmless to normal people.

Although as yet unproven, this is an interesting suggestion, because increasing vehicle exhaust pollution does not seem to fully explain the increasing incidence of asthma and is, therefore, another reminder of the possible serious complications of careless antibiotic use.

Antibiotics, used judiciously, can save your life. Used indiscriminately they may cause you life-threatening complications. Perhaps antibiotic packs should carry a health warning (does one dare say like cigarettes?).