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LY D © oF VEW? OVERUSE OF ANTIBIOTICS IS HAVING BAD SIDE- EFFECTS 1) A leading scientist has warned that the world is threat- ened with a medical disaster, because a key pillar of twentieth century medicine is crumbling. Professor Alexander Tomasz, a world-renowned microbiologist, said recently that antibiotics are in danger of becoming powerless to fight off new strains of -super- resistant bacteria. Delivering a keynote address to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco, he said: "Already some strains of bacteria have been found to carry resistance to every antibiotic known to medicine.” He wars that diseases that are now curable, such as tuberculosis, pneu- monia, blood poisoning, etc., could return this decade as the mass killers they once were. (Source: The Observer, 20 February 1994) 2) According to an independent British researcher, Dr Lisa Landymore- Lim, the increasing incidence of asthma in Australian children (the highest in the world) may be linked to commonly pre- scribed antibiotics and penicillin. Australians consume twice the amount of prescription drugs per head of population than many other westem countries, and this could be a factor in why Australia has the world’s highest levels of asthma, especially in children. Her three-year study showed that the younger the age at which antibiotics were regularly prescribed, the younger the age at which asthmatic symptoms were reported. (Source: The Australian, 3 January 1994) ANIMAL TESTING STOPPED ON L'OREAL COSMETICS The world's largest cosmetics company, L'Oréal, has ended a four-year battle with an animal rights group by agreeing to halt cosmetics tests using animals. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), a group based in Washington, led a consumer boycott cam- paign against L'Oréal, asserting amongst other things that the company fried live animals to test sunscreen make-up. PETA said its next target would be Gillette, which it accused of blinding and poi- soning animals to test products ranging from shaving cream to liquid paper. (Source: Courier-Mail, 14 October 1993) deliberately increasing nicotine levels to get more smokers addicted. Kessler has advised that if the FDA decides on the classification, it could lead “ultimately, to the removal from the market of tobacco products contain- ing nicotine at levels that cause or satis- fy addiction”. It may end up with people having to obtain their cigarettes and tobacco from a chemist or drug store, on a prescrip- tion from a doctor who has registered you as “addicted”. (Source: Sunday Telegraph, 27 February 1994) FDA CONSIDERS BAN ON NICOTINE The US Food and _ Drug Administration (FDA) is considering a ban on any cigarettes strong enough to get people addicted to nicotine. FDA Commissioner David Kessler said that nicotine's addictive nature could give it the legal definition of a drug and has asked Congress for “direc- tion on the matter”. He also said there was mounting proof that cigarette manufacturers were WHAT 1s THE Soump OF ONE HAND CLAPPING? DOCTORS KILL FIVE TIMES AS MANY PEOPLE AS GUNS! The 1990 Harvard Medical Practice Study suggests that, each year, 150,000 people die from the negligence of doc- tors. Since there are about 300,000 doc- tors in the USA, that means each year approximately one out of every two US doctors kills a patient negligently. Over a thirty-year career, this could mean the average doctor would negligently kill 15 patients. Since there are about 200 million guns in the US, and about 30,000 people SL Bae APRIL - MAY 1994 6*NEXUS ee