I have quite a bit of a problem with people ordering antibiotics, and breeding antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains both inside their bodies, and in our sewers once they feel better and flush the rest of the pills.
Come on, we all know that if you have insurance and see your doctor with the sniffles, you can leave with a antibiotic prescription if you want.
I'm not defending the illegal online drug markets, but the problem of resistant germs is a much bigger problem and it has nothing to do with Amazon resellers.
Right now, you have to go to a doctor and get a prescription - if you don't have a bacterial infection, or aren't likely to get one (e.g., post-oral-surgery stuff) they won't prescribe you the antibiotics.
If it's possible to buy it on amazon, people will end up 'abusing' them to try and treat non-bacterial infections.
That's actually not what doctors say. When they can't determine if an infection is viral or bacterial, they treat it on the chance that it's bacterial (since we have a known treatment for bacterial infections and don't usually have a treatment for viral infections).
Tonsillitis is a good example: About 50% of tonsillitis cases are viral and 50% bacterial. "Relying on clinical presentation and history alone is unreliable in differentiating streptococcal from viral tonsillitis."[1] And bacterial tonsillitis can be quite serious.
So it seems reasonable to go ahead and treat with antibiotics even when there's a 50% chance that it's wasted, because the other 50% chance was that the treatment was highly beneficial.
A fact pulled directly from your ass. Doctors never prescribe antibiotics for viral infections; antibiotics are for bacterial infections and no they don't just hand them out willy nilly.
Please don't be rude on Hacker News. This comment would be much better without the first sentence.
No offense, but "i don't trust doctors for arbitrary subjective reason X" is, to me, the exact kind of garbage I hear from non-scientific "global warming skeptics".
They find some arbitrary, subjective reason to validate their distrust of experts in a field they are a laymen in.
I don't see how you're not doing the same thing. Vilify an industry, smear doctors because of your subjective vilification, and then apparently come online and promote your false "skepticism" rooted wholly in what sounds like a laypersons understanding of their work and industry.
I said if you have insurance, you can easily walk into most doctors' office with the sniffles (my poor choice of words for an illness with symptoms, but most likely not needing antibiotics) and walk out with a script for an antibiotic. Perhaps my sample set is very abnormal, but I see this constantly among my friends and colleagues. When they get a cold, they go to the doctor after a few days and leave with a prescription. When I've asked folks about it, it seems mostly out of habit. You feel bad, you go to the doctor. I find it odd, because if I ever get really sick and need antibiotics to keep me alive, I want them to be maximally effective.
Yes you did:
> The day doctors sold out and started accepting bribes from pharma reps is the day that I stopped trusting them
It really depends on the doctor, which is quite a bit better than arbitrarily ordering off Amazon.