Is Too Much Medicine Making Us Sick?
Thérèse Coffey, the new Health Secretary, was accused of “monumental stupidity” recently for giving leftover antibiotics to a friend. Doctors rounded on her as they described her actions as both dangerous and against the law. Medical professionals fear the public might think it safe and lawful to share unused medicines. This news came amid reports of plans to allow pharmacies to prescribe antibiotics without patients first being examined by their GPs. U.K. pharmacies will be allowed to manage and supply more medicines including contraception without a doctor’s prescription under the plans to overhaul the creaking National Health Service. It comes after complaints from the public about a lack of face-to-face GP appointments since the Covid restrictions began.
This story appears to be a further example of our Government’s Covid policy mindset, where the public are merely fodder for mass experimentation and where the politicians are absolved of any of the possible dire consequences. The harms of over-prescribing antibiotics and medicines may have been underestimated in the Government’s Covid strategy.
An example of the mindset described above is the manner in which dental access was restricted during lockdown. An ‘AAA’ approach of advice, analgesics (painkillers) and antibiotics was instigated. A CQC report highlights some of the problems: there was already a serious access issue before Covid and the response to it resulted in further reduced capacity; there were more negative feedback accounts of patients searching for dentists many miles away, reeling in pain and even attempting to remove their own teeth with pliers; antibiotic prescribing increased by over 25% and in some areas such as London by 60%, according to a recent study in the British Dental Journal; patients were asked to attend alone and be masked; there were problems with dental services not being able to work well with other health and care providers and difficulties that prevented patients from receiving a prompt, joined-up experience of care.
It is very difficult to know just how many extra painkillers were taken over the period of Covid restrictions for both dental and general medical reasons because many may have been taken without prescription. But the number is sure to have increased significantly and one should not underestimate the adverse consequences and increased risk this may have posed, especially to the aged, ill or medically compromised. Paracetamol prescriptions increased by 22% and a study showed that opioid use increased by 40% for those patients waiting for hip and knee replacements. The waiting list for orthopaedic operations has since deteriorated further. When opioids are used like this patients are more at risk of complications related to the operation, poorer outcomes and ongoing opioid dependence.
The reports of increased use of the powerful sedative midazolam during the early phase of Covid is shocking and demands a thorough investigation.
The harms of over-prescribing antibiotics and medicines in general can also be compared to the effect of the Government’s Covid strategy on society. Delicate pre-existing equilibriums – both social and physiological – were bombarded by outside influences with consequences that, for most, were far more harmful than Covid itself.
Antibiotic over-prescribing can result in some of the following possible consequences:
- antibiotic associated diarrhoea;
- clostridium difficile infection;
- helicobacter pylori infection;
- development of obesity, autism, allergies and inflammatory bowel disease and delayed gut flora development in children.
The first three of the above effects can be catastrophic for the elderly, hospitalised and medically compromised, for whom Covid policy was meant to help most. There was a large rise in the prescribing of certain medications including antibiotics in nursing homes during Covid. Interestingly, another study of general primary care antibiotic prescribing showed an overall decrease in the eight month period following the start of the initial lockdown but the prescribing of broad-spectrum antibiotics increased – especially in older patients.
The effects included in the last item of the above list can adversely affect the health of children, for whom Covid poses little, if any, threat.
A 2019 study in Nature showed the staggering death toll of bacterial antimicrobial resistance that kills more than HIV/AIDS or malaria. A 2016 review estimated that, by 2050, there could be 10 million such deaths per year globally and that some infections may become incurable.
The potentially harmful effects of antibiotics on our natural gut flora include a reduced diversity of species, altered metabolic activity and an increased proportion of antibiotic-resistant organisms. Many people may be unaware that as much as 70-80% of the immune cells in our bodies are present in the gut. They help filter nutrients, prevent toxins entering the bloodstream and also strengthen and support systemic immunity.
Dr. Wendy Thompson, author of the British Dental Journal study mentioned above, said: “Antibiotics are life-saving drugs; when people need them, they really need to work.”
With the NHS waiting list for hospital treatment now hitting a record high at 7 million, almost half a million patients waiting more than a year and with 12% fewer operations and treatments than before Covid, will the legacy of the Government’s lockdowns be increased morbidity and excess mortality compounded by more prescribing? Will another legacy of Covid policy and its increased antibiotic, painkiller and, of course, vaccine prescribing regime be that the pharmaceutical industry is the big winner and the rest of us are the losers, made sick by unnecessary medicine?
Dr. Mark Shaw is a retired dentist.
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To the list of over-prescribing, could you add the risk of encouraging antibiotic resistant bacteria? It may be that fashions have changed a bit, but several years ago, the dentist I used (who is long since retired) often prescribed 7 days of whatever, which seems to be less common after dental treatment now. In those days, there was a pharmacist next door; don’t know if that had anything to do with it, but you never know!
It may well be that the pharmaceutical trade will win financially, although you have to live to be able to pay, so maybe not; it depends on the net outcome.
There are certainly too many doctors, “public health” fascists and Big Pharma Satanists making us sick.
Whilst they make a lot of profit making us ill. First drug made you sick? No issue. Here is two and three just in case…come back when you get cancer….we have some chemo…
Yes, too much “medicine” is making us sick.
Drink Kefir, especially after any course of antibiotics. Your local supermarket will sell it, but get it from the Polish section for a fraction of the price it’s sold at in the other section.
Great advice – I make it at home using Kefir grains bought off the internet. It’s practically cured me of a chronic intestinal condition. This is after every single prescribed pharmaceutical drug having zero impact.
Strewth, didn’t someone say that medical interventions should only be made when you absolutely have to, as a rule?
A bit of a worry too that we have yet another clueless health secretary, though perhaps not a surprise. Sir Christopher Chope unavailable then was he? Bent bunch of crooks.
“Will another legacy of Covid policy and its increased antibiotic, painkiller and, of course, vaccine prescribing regime be that the pharmaceutical industry is the big winner and the rest of us are the losers, made sick by unnecessary medicine?”
That is precisely the plan.
Probably the most unique and most harmful British stupidity with regard to the Covid response was turning the NHS into Covid only for almost a year, GPs into teledoctors only and for good and shutting dentistry for half a year.
Even in the most Covid zealous countries, none of these idiocies were ever introduced and practiced.
German dentists were closed for 2 weeks in March 2020, then it was back to business as usual.
A dentist friend of mine there had his 2nd best year ever financially in 2020.
Go figure.
In Poland, as far as I know, dentists never closed. Perhaps two weeks, max.
There is nothing to “figure.”
Restrictions on medical interventions where required was deliberate. The wholesale introduction of Non Pharmaceutical Interventions was equally deliberate and was intended to undermine public health.
I would suggest these two worked a treat.
Ah well, if it was Dr Rachel Clarke who did the accusing then I will ignore it.
At one time I might have gone along with this, but since doctors made themselves unavailable for the duration and any conceivable cocktail of ‘vaccines’ were deemed acceptable in any Tom, Dick or Harriet, I will do as I like.
I’ll probably be posting a strip of unprescribed Indian IVM to my lurgy-afflicted son if he needs it, and sod the NHS. As far as I’m concerned it’s every man for him/herself since the government went rogue.
(I did have a bit of a twinge of conscience when giving blood not to declare my once-a-fortnight dose but I figured my donation would be safer than that of a jabbee. At least I won’t give anyone worms…)
👍
Brilliant.
Add this to the egregious overprescribing of statins for hyperlipidemia, antidepressants, and antihypertensives.
These 3 alone have led to Big Pharma realising long ago that all they need to do is create a disease, or vastly inflate the danger of the disease, and the money will flow.
Sound familiar?
Is too much medicine making us sick – answer YES! I am now into natural medicine having learnt that many cures can be found in the kitchen cupboard, apple cider vinegar, garlic, lemon juice, 3% hydrogen peroxide, bicarbonate soda, these are now my go-to if I have a problem.
Me too! Have collected and dried quantities of nettle leaves, chamomile flowers and comfrey leaves with no clear idea what to do with them. Must buy a book…
Have iodine in the cupboard and am addressing dietary and lifestyle habits in order to minimise future problems.
Many cures can be found even closer to you than your kitchen cupboard – within your own body. The body is amazingly self-healing when causes are removed. The pharmaceutical companies don’t want people to know this. I haven’t taken any medication or had any medical treatment (apart from dental treatment) since 1976. Every time I get ill, with flu, for example, or Covid (a few months ago), I take nothing for it, eat very lightly (e.g. fresh fruit) and rest, and let nature take its course. I’m still alive! I didn’t fear Covid because I’m very sure I have a healthy natural immune system. At the beginning of the pandemic in March/April 2020, we were told that Covid was a big risk to people with weakened immune systems. Yet in two and a half years since then, no action has been taken by the government or medical establishment, there have been no mainstream media campaigns or anything, to encourage the population to develop and strengthen their natural immune systems. In fact all the Covid measures were detrimental to our immune systems. Most people have a medical mentality and think you must “take something for it”. Not necessarily. If I needed… Read more »
Antibiotics can also do a lot of direct damage, especially the fluoroquinolones. There are few drugs out there, if any, that can wreak more havoc than Cipro, and unfortunately prescriptions are more common than ever. Both my brother and I had horrific disabling adverse reactions to this class of drugs and in both our cases the medical system has refused to acknowledge the harm they have done. Doctors, nurse and pharmacists are oblivious. Gaslighting like what we are seeing now in the covid era has been going on for a century or more with patent medicine, it’s just been kicked up a notch or two lately. In fact, the standard toxic protocol for covid will always include a broad spectrum antibiotic, usually an FQ like Cipro, sometimes a different toxic chemical that wipes out life. It’s highly likely that a BIG part of the long hauler thing is harm done by the treatments, with antibiotics playing a much bigger role than most folks realize. People need to know more about this. Search the word “floxed” , the slang term for our condition of harm from head to toe. Follow where it takes you. Have you been floxed?