I learned from the excellent blog Baghdad Burning that medicines that require a prescription in the U.S. are available over the counter in Iraq. I have heard similar things about antibiotics in Brazil. This bears investigation. A natural solution to a shortage of health care resources is self-medication. (It has always struck me as odd that one can buy a handgun in the U.S. much more easily than one can buy penicillin.) Such a strategy will tend toward symptomatic treatment of very dangerous conditions and toward the evolution of really nasty bugs -- as people expose more and more bacteria to the selective pressures of inappropriate antibiotics.
This is a thought about counter-measures generally. Where they are being employed thoughtlessly and a lot, worry.
I wonder what an "appropriate use of penicillin" map of the world would show. I think I might avoid places where use was grossly inappropriate.
Just a thought.
Posted by shea0017 at January 12, 2005 11:31 AM