[marriedWpt]

Remember when physicians said they should be the only ones to give out antibiotics for our safety?

Can we totally kill that excuse for their monopoly?

We trusted the physician cartel for decades and they have made healthcare worse.

[bpaddock]

Fluoroquinolone antibiotics such as Levaquin (no longer manufactured, only generics now [you can not sue the makers of generics in most states]), Cipro etc. should be removed from the market due to their devastating side effects.

My late wife's Journal was part of the 2015 FDA hearing about getting these restricted from doctors giving them out like candy. Alas all we got was yet more "Black Box" warnings that you and the doctors never see.

Karen ultimately killed herself from the Chronic Pain cause by the Levaquin and Cerebrospinal Leaks (CSF Leaks). Her saga is one of the five stories in the upcoming documentary Pain Warriors being released to distribution this spring.

I'm now up to 44 people that have told me that their own CSF Leak started after taking Levaquin, Cipro etc. Something that there is ZERO medical research on. The Leak doctors are aware of this as I spoke about it at their first ever CSF Leak conference.

Someone here will inevitably say "I took Cipro et.al just fine". Many people do take it may times until they have a reaction or they don't associate their new health problems with the delayed reaction months later.

Antibiotics in general are a good thing, however we must never assume they are safe in and of themselves without consequences.

[mikestew]

Someone here will inevitably say "I took Cipro et.al just fine".

A lot of my childhood was spent in hospitals, and I've had a variety of antibiotics over the years. And anesthetics, I've become quite the connoisseur. I'm not allergic to anything, I've never had a reaction of any kind to any drug. Not even allergic to any foods. Bring on the shrimp and peanuts!

I was recently given Cipro. My entire back broke out in a rash. Not a devastating side effect, but after a lifetime of a variety of drugs of all sorts without any but the desired effect, it sure made me go "WTF? You sure this shit's safe?"

[bpaddock]

If you look into their history you find that they are decedents of failed chemotherapy drugs.

No, they are not safe.

[conanbatt]

I thank you for sharing your story and I can't even imagine the pain your wife and you went through.

I do think that even though there are dangerous drugs, there are costs to making the use more expensive or harder to get. All drugs have side effects and some are truly devastating and the best way to handle that risk/reward tolerance is talking to a provider and managing it. The same way some drugs create dependence, the lack of them also cause enormous pain, and their increased price also create inaccessibility.

There is definitely a rampant culture of consuming pharmacological products in the US: maybe there are things that are causing the US society to be so dependent on drugs that can be addressed.

[bpaddock]

I've gathered all of the FDA warnings and some of the EU warnings (they say don't use them) at the link below.

The FDA itself says these should not be used until all other possibilities have been exhausted. Sadly the doctors are not getting the message and are giving them out like candy.

http://www.kpaddock.com/fq

[h2odragon]

Cipro was a weird one; it was "omg last resort top of the line" there for a bit; then Amerithrax happened and the shit was being handed out like candy; and a few years later my dog gets it post-op "for the rest of her life".

I doubt the story of how that happened, the corruption and stupidity that enabled it, will ever make it out of the land of "conspiracy theorist ravings" ... but it should.

[jacobush]

Yeah... how about regulate them and then enforce it. Antibiotics should never be off the counter.

[sambull]

How do you feel about the uses of antibiotics in the food chain? The US of which is #1 winning in that.

[jacobush]

It's truly absurd, incredibly short-sighted even if one were to take the advantages at face value.

But the advantages are a microcosm of horror, too, like the ability to keep animals clamped in extremely constricted, filthy, stress inducing environments without the flesh literally rotting off their bones, while feeding them a diet (corn for cattle?!) which gives them ulcers.

[distances]

The industrial farming practices are so disgusting I'm just lacking the words. Antibiotics should be a last resort, prescribed by a vet on a per-animal basis after other conditions are verified to be fine. There should be a clear financial incentive to keep farm animals healthy by default!