In Pursuit Of Wellness - Miracle Drugs-They've Come Back to Haunt Us

                                     Miracle Drugs. . . They've Come Back to Haunt Us!
                                                         Lyle Loughry
                                                     Originally copyrighted 2001, Updated 2006

More than 90 MILLION Americans are affected by Chronic Infectious Diseases, now the leading cause of death, worldwide. Since 1978, more than 30, often virulent diseases, have been discovered--diseases like AID'S, Ebola, Legionnaire's and Lyme's-- and diseases like malaria and tuberculosis are on the rise. As recently as 2000, there were more deaths from tuberculosis than at any time in history, and there are more cases of TB in New York City than in many third world countries. The 1940s ushered in the age of exciting new "miracle drugs" beginning with penicillin. At that time these drugs were considered the most important medical discovery ever in the battle against infectious diseases. With the introduction of antibiotic-based therapy, the conquest of infectious disease seemed sure. According to Dr. Thomas Beam of the Buffalo, New York VA Medical Center, "The perception in the 1960s was that we had conquered almost every infectious disease." Unfortunately, during the 1970s that victory began to unravel. Today, we know with certainty that medicine's purported triumph over infectious disease has become nothing more than an illusion. In an address before the American Association for the Advancement of Science in February 1994, Dr. Alexander Tomasz voiced the concern of clinical microbiologists, medical practitioners and public health professionals about the rapid rise and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. In 1995, in a disturbing sign of the growing danger of drug resistant microbes, researchers at Emory University in GA and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the results of a federal survey showing that 25% of the people sampled had pneumococcal infections that were resistant to penicillin, which was once nearly infallible in killing these bugs. That figure was 1,000 times greater than estimates made in 1985!By 1998, even a brief listing of some of the pathogens with strains that are antibiotic-resistant included:

Streptococcus pneumoniae
* Group A Streptococci
* Enterococci
* Staphylococci
* Enteric bacilli
* Haemophilus influenzae
* Neisseria gonorrhoeae
* Neisseria meningitis
* Mycobacterium tuberculosis
* Pneumococcus
* Meningococcal infections
* Mutant Escherichiacoli
* Plasmodium
* Candida albicans
* Trichomonus

Some of the most threatening multi-drug resistant(MDR) pathogens which have gained a foothold are MDR Pneumococcus, MDR Staphylococcus aureus, often referred to now as MRSA, MDR Enterococcus facium, and MDR Tuberculosis.

The first penicillin-resistant pneumococcus was discovered in 1967, in Papua, New Guinea. In 1977, a pneumonia epidemic caused by MDR Pneumococcus was being reported by a number of South American hospitals. The bug had not only become resistant to penicillin, but other antibiotics as well, and an increase in its level of resistance by more than several thousand-fold was reported. This bacterium is a major threat to public safety because it can be life-threatening to certain ill or elderly patients. This multi-drug-resistant "Super Bug" causes 7 to 10 MILLION middle-ear infections in children each year, thousand of cases of meningitis and bloodstream infections, and 500,000 cases of pneumonia, from which over 50,000 Americans die.
MDR Staphylococcus aureus (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) has now become known as The SUPERBUG, newspaper headlines around the world proclaim:

* "Superbug strain hit the healthy"
* "Superbug hits 11,000 patients on dirty wards"
* "One patient in 10 gets a hospital bug" Cases of deadly hospital superbug hit 200 a week"
* "Twenty-three year old dies of MRSA after routine operation"
* "Football players are on defense against MRSA bacteria"
* Doctors worry about what future holds for MRSA"

MRSA is the most common cause of skin, wound and bloodstream infections in hospitalized patients, and can be fatal if not recognized early and treated properly. Several strains of this pathogen here in the US, and elsewhere have now become resistant to almost all available antibiotics.

MDR Enterococcus faecium has already acquired resistance to Vancomycin, considered "the drug of last resort" by many. As early as 1992, Enterococcus faecium had become the third most frequent "causative agent" of hospital-acquired wounds, urinary tract infections, septicemia, and endocarditis, a rare but serious infection that affects the endocardial surface of the heart.
    According to infectious disease specialist, Marcus Horwitz of the University of Southern California, "The emergence of strains of MDR Tuberculosis over the past few years in the Unite States means that we're sitting on a time bomb." Speaking of MDR's, Dr. Alexander Tomasz, referred to earlier in this article, laments, "If you get the infection, you are in the Almighty's hands."

    Infectious disease specialists point to patients, physicians and drug companies as all contributing to the problem by promoting indiscriminate and excessive use of chemical antibiotics. They have given once-controlled "bugs" new life, and every dose of antibiotics prescribed and taken makes it easier for resistance to spread. Add to that the flood of antibiotics which have entered the food chain. Farm animals receive 30 TIMES more antibiotics that people do. They remain in the animal's flesh, and is then consumed by the public. Also, milk contains up to 80 different antibiotics, and with every glassful people swallow minute amounts of these drugs. The results are now obvious: we have set into motion a microscopic-level struggle from which have sprung "super" microbes that injure and kill us!

    A growing sense of anxiety is sweeping the medical community, which is supposed to have the answers, and to whom most people with health issues turn. Recent surveys reveal that 90% of visits to doctor's offices are infection-related, and in frustration, scientists and healthcare professionals stand by and watch while one illness-causing microbe after another win the battle against doctor-prescribed antibiotics.

To make matters even worse, in addition to the issue of bacterial infections dealt with in this article, there also exists an increasing number of mutating, highly infectious and lethally "hot" viruses surfacing around the world. Unlike bacteria, viruses are difficult to fight once the infection takes hold. Antibiotic-based chemotherapy is useless against this attacker because antibiotics are bacteria-specific, and as such are limited to bacterial infections. Existing vaccines for viral infections are often ineffective because so many viruses, like the HIV virus, are prone to rapid mutations.

    The result of all of this is that our natural, God-designed defenses against infectious disease have been virtually wiped out, or seriously compromised. Without these natural defenders to protect us against pathogenic organisms, we fall prey to a wide range of health problems, many leading to death, as the top-ranking of chronic infectious disease as a worldwide killer proves. Many specialists are now willing to admit that, as infections become harder to fully treat with antibiotic-based chemotherapy, our only real alternative may be more natural methods. Nothing found in the doctor's bag of prescription medicines can compare with a healthy, vital immune system, and nothing found in that "bag" will give you a healthy, vital immune system, either.
    How vulnerable are you? That depends on how strong, how informed, and how responsive your immune system is to attack. In the months and years ahead, it will be your immune system that will rescue and save you, or not!
* " It would appear that the pathogens have now outdone the "miracle drugs" that many Americans rely on for their medical security.