Nexus - 1701 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

Pseudomonas and C. difficile pathogens. Even the once- especially resilient and may have the potential to easy-to-treat pneumococcal bacteria have become become drug-resistant super-strains. It should be resistant to many antibiotics. Some microbes are now —_ remembered that these bugs live in everyone, but they resistant to all man-made antibiotics. become pathogenic only when their numbers increase Despite all this, few would argue that the discovery of | above a certain level. When we open up the biological antibiotics did not make a tremendous difference in _ terrain by killing the friendly microbes that protect us, fighting infection and saving lives. Yet we can see that _ these bacteria overgrow and reach the critical mass they this advancement has come at a huge price: our war need to cause damage to our tissues. against nature has catalysed a warlike response from Because of our inattention to these large issues, nature. MRSA infections are now responsible for thousands of Meanwhile, what about the other end of the deaths every year in our hospitals. An article published Pasteur-Béchamp spectrum? Why haven't we fully — in the Lancet in June 2006 reported that more than two addressed the obvious fact that these opportunistic million people worldwide now passively carry MRSA in infections usually attack us when our immunity is their bodies;° thus MRSA has become part of our new depressed? Instead, we pursue pharmaceutical and "normal" microflora. Although these microbes are other strategies that are akin to scorched-earth harmless to most carriers, when they are passed to warfare—engaging in battles that both destroy the immunocompromised people a lethal infection can "enemy" and cause collateral damage to innocent occur—not only in our hospitals but also now in our civilians—while ignoring the communities. While MRSA possibility of creating the 9 9 bacteria are harmless to most conditions of well-being in the This hybrid approach carriers because they persist in first place through trade. focuses on the premise only very small numbers. when cultural exchange, negotiation . ey are passe ) and conflict resolution. that the body itself does immunocompromised people— veutsts dowcciete come of the the healing and that ot ibloties We veteed he potentially lethal hazards of medicine should support urf for their growth in the gut— using increasingly powerful Q c here is the possibility for their medicines in isolation from this PrOcess as Its top overgrowth and lethal infection. other more natural and priority... The statistics tell the story. supportive strategies. Although According to an article we have long known about the published in e-Medicine in micro-ecosystems that inhabit our skin and parts of our —‘ January 2009, five per cent of all acute-care admissions respiratory, digestive and genito-urinary systems, we studied between 1986 and 1998 were complicated by have only recently come to appreciate the significance hospital-acquired infections. This amounted to two of interfering with the balances within these systems million infections and 90,000 deaths, at a cost of USS4.5 when we introduce antibiotics into our bodies. These _ billion annually.” balances are vital to maintaining good health and are The complicated high-tech approach that underlies profoundly disturbed by antibiotics and a multitude of | modern medicine's quest to triumph over nature other factors such as poor diet, stress, immune ascribes a God-like quality to medical practitioners and dysfunction, lack of sleep, poor digestion, many _ researchers. This belief system has tended to erode the pharmaceutical drugs and a wide range of collaboration and partnership between physician and miscellaneous factors. patient—and of the two of them with nature—and has We have come to realise that whenever an antibioticis led to the attitudes of "We can take care of you, even if introduced to kill a certain microbe that has caused an you don't take care of yourself" and "You can leave the infection, only those microbes that are able to survivein _ treatment to us". the presence of the antibiotic will be able to remain in We have become comfortable relying on an the body; the others, of course, will succumb to the incomplete model of science and medicine to solve our treatment. These ecosystems will remain radically health issues and have relinquished much of our altered until each individual milieu can be restored. personal responsibility to live a healthy lifestyle and This is done by re-creating the delicate and sometimes build an ecologically sustainable world. A vast tenuous balance between the defence systems of our industry—sometimes known as the medical- bodies and those of the resistant microbes that still pharmaceutical-industrial compler—has grown around this reside in the intestinal tract, skin, vagina, tears and one-sided model of health care, with its questionable upper-respiratory tract. claim of being based upon genuine science. °o Of course, if the bacteria causing a disease are not killed by the antibiotic, they can be considered to be Continued on page 81 Pseudomonas and C. difficile pathogens. Even the once- easy-to-treat pneumococcal bacteria have become resistant to many antibiotics. Some microbes are now resistant to all man-made antibiotics. Despite all this, few would argue that the discovery of antibiotics did not make a tremendous difference in fighting infection and saving lives. Yet we can see that this advancement has come at a huge price: our war against nature has catalysed a warlike response from nature. This hybrid approach focuses on the premise that the body itself does are the healing and that medicine should support priority... more to as NEXUS ¢ 33 this process as its top Continued on page 81 DECEMBER 2009 - JANUARY 2010 www.nexusmagazine.com