Doctors have become reluctant to prescribe antibiotics, out of fear of creating antibiotic resistance. As peer pressure increased to deny patients antibiotics, chronic diseases increased in younger and younger patients. Antibiotics do not all have same resistance profile or the same risk of antibiotic resistance. Not all infections are the same, and not all infections require the same or even any treatment with antibiotics. Acute infections with intracellular pathogens have the potential to cause chronic disease, and treatment with appropriate antibiotics during the acute phase may help prevent or forestall the long-term evolution of chronic disease.
In “Plague Time: The New Germ Theory”, Ewald PW, Dr. Ewald argued, based on his expertise in evolutionary biology and logic, that many chronic diseases would be discovered to have infectious causes, and that infectious causes have been ignored in research for too long. He also proposed that antibiotic treatment of acute infection presents a greater risk of spreading drug-resistant pathogens than treatment of chronic infections, and people being treated for acute infections should isolate themselves from others to prevent the spread of drug-resistant pathogens in the family and community.
The problem is not the over prescribing of antibiotics—it is prescribing too many of the wrong antibiotics, indiscriminate prescribing of penicillin and broad spectrum antibiotics, refusal to prescribe the appropriate antibiotics when needed (match the bug to the drug), and giving 80% or more of all antibiotics to the animals we eat.
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