The latest issue of the British Medical Journal includes a study1 that will be cheered by chiropractors, and painful to pediatricians (see "Routine Use of Antibiotics for Otitis Media Unproven, Conclude International Researchers" on the front page of this issue). Most will recognize this as another case of scientific research finally catching up with chiropractic philosophy.
How satisfying it is to finally read in a press release that "antibiotics are not the best treatment for middle ear infections and doctors should stop routinely prescribing drugs for them".2 The scientists from Britain, Netherlands and the United States who examined all of the relevant studies are now basically saying what chiropractic has been saying for years.
Imagine the drug companies finally being cut off from their multi-billion-dollar annual income streams, and concerned parents no longer buying virtually worthless drugs.
What will the MDs do now, prescribe aspirin or insert tubes? Who needs an office call to learn that the wonder drug doesn't work?
How much faith can mothers have in a profession that has used useless drugs to create antibiotic-resistant organisms for their now antibiotic-immune children to face in later life?
In 1994, the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research released their guidelines, Managing Otitis Media with Effusion in Young Children (please see "Otitis Media Guidelines Leave Door Open for Chiropractic" in the September 23, 1994 issue). Antibiotics were their first recommended form of treatment, but the list of potential harmful side-effects (and the percentage of children they affect) is enough to wake up any parent:
- Nausea, vomiting and diarrhea (in 2-32% of children) depending on dose and antibiotic
- Cutaneous reactions, less than or equal to 5%
- Numerous rare organ system effects, including very rare fatalities.
Doing some simple math, depending on the dose and antibiotic, a child has as much as a 37 percent chance of experiencing a harmful side-effect from a drug not considered to have any real value for acute ear infections.
So who's going to tell the parents? Who's going to tell the truth about what the drug companies and their MD accomplices have perpetrated on many of the children of the Western world?
YOU WILL. Don't hold your breath waiting for pediatrician confessions or drug company apologies. If parents are going to hear the truth, they'll have to hear it from you.
Fortunately, the paper presented in the British Medical Journal is straightforward and easy to read. It is as if the authors wrote it for the patient audience.
We contacted the British Medical Journal, purchased reprints of the paper, and paid to have them shipped to us for distribution to the chiropractic profession. We're offering them to you at our cost.
This paper is a must read for all your patients, particularly those with small children. Many of them will want to share this information with their friends and family. Some may even want to have some serious discussions with their MDs.
It would not be surprising for MDs to continue to prescribe antibiotics for ear infections in the face of this report. This is your opportunity to demonstrate your concern and your professionalism.
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As you will see, this is the ammunition you've always wanted.
References
- Froom J, Culpepper L, Jacobs M, et al. Antimicrobials for acute otitis media? A review from the International Primary Care Network. BMJ 1997:315;98-102.
- Antibiotics best avoided for middle ear. BMJ, No. 7100, Vol. 315. Press release, Saturday, 12 July, 1997.
