We're Running Out of Antibiotics

[Ms. Toad]

12. Your contact with the medical profession differs considerably from mine.

I have had several doctors say that to me, including some from at least two of the top medical institutions in the US (as well as a number which do not have national standing). I have not had any who persisted in that statement when I challenged them on it - but as often as not, the phrase patient resistance - or "you may develop a resistance" (rather than microbe resistance) is the first thing out of their mouths.

I know enough to challenge phsyicians when they make statements like that - but unfortunately not everyone living with this disease does. That means that it is reported in the support groups dealing with my daughter's disease - as attributed to top doctors in the country (and I know from my own experience a fair amount of it, if not all, is an accurate attribution). That makes it harder to make the case for the studies which need to be done. It robs patients who want to participate in the formal trials (or in off-label use of the medication outside the trial) of the opportunity to participate in the trials and of the tools to communicate with their doctors about it.

As far as your reading of the article - we'll just have to disagree. No amount of rationalization is going to convince me that using the phrase post-antibiotic in the same sentence with microbes and patients, in a parallel construiction, has a different meaning applied to some microbes (antibiotics are irrelevant in total) than it does to some patients (antibiotics are irrelevant only as it pertains to certain infections caused by certain microbes, but still very relevant to treating infections in those patients which are caused by non-resistant microbes)