Dishonesty all around<\/p>\n
Given the magnitude of the deception, the findings raise concern that the ill-gotten antibiotics could contribute to the rise of antibiotic-resistant infections. Misuse and overuse of antibiotics are known to drive the development and spread of drug resistance<\/a>. This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released an updated report on antimicrobial resistance threats<\/a>, finding that drug-resistant bacteria and fungi are now causing 9.7 million infections and 50,800 deaths in the US each year.<\/p>\n But in the accompanying commentary, Linder said that an even more concerning consequence may be the \u201cerosion of trust\u201d between clinicians and patients. Linder acknowledged that drug resistance is a concern, but said that on the basis of an individual patient, in most clinical circumstances, the development of drug resistance is \u201cprobably irrelevant.\u201d<\/p>\n To Linder, the more pertinent question doctors must face is: \u201cIs this prescription more likely to help my patient or hurt them?\u201d The answer is that it\u2019s more likely to hurt; unnecessary antibiotics provide no benefit, but pose risk of adverse events, allergic reactions, and disruption of healthy microbiomes, which can provide an opening for opportunistic pathogens, such as Clostridioides difficile<\/a> (which is classified as a \u201cserious threat\u201d in the CDC\u2019s newly updated antimicrobial resistance threat report.)<\/p>\n \u201cFor these non-antibiotic-appropriate diagnoses, prescribing antibiotics is medically incorrect and could itself be considered a form of dishonesty or lying mainly to assuage the patient,\u201d Linder wrote. That dishonesty is corrosive, he said, quoting philosopher Sissela Bok, who wrote extensively about lying and, even specifically, about lying to get antibiotics. In 1978, Bok noted that antibiotics are \u201csometimes used as placebos\u201d and many parents \u201ccome to believe that they must ask for the prescription of antibiotics every time their child has a fever or a cold.\u201d But Bok argued that when clinicians prescribe medications more likely to harm than help, such \u201cpractices lacking in candor\u201d threaten \u201cthe entire institution of medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n Linder concludes by reminding readers that \u201cClinicians\u2019 obligation is to act in patients\u2019 best interest, even if patients are hoping we do something different, even if patients do not like it, or even if patients lie about their symptoms.\u201d<\/p>\n Thorpe and colleagues, meanwhile, conclude with a call to address the reasons patients lie in the first place, writing: \u201cStrategies to improve communication about antibiotics are needed to address patient concerns, support understanding of appropriate antibiotic use, and strengthen patient-clinician relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dishonesty all around Given the magnitude of the deception, the findings raise concern that the ill-gotten antibiotics could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":900434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[97],"class_list":["post-900433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}