Eshin Direct

Saw an interesting programme on TVB Pearl last night called the “The Misuse of a Miracle” which basically talked about the overuse of antibiotics which in turn has led to an increase in resistance in bacteria and other nasties. It raised some interesting points.

The first point was that this is nothing new. Abuse of antibiotics has been around for decades. The common perception is that the flu can be taken care of with antibiotics but basic secondary school biology tells us that virus (which the flu is) cannot be killed or treated with antibiotics. The best thing for the common cold is to let it ride out its course. Of course, in pressure-driven societies like Hong Kong and London, we are probably all driven to finding that thing that helps us to keep us working-fit.

Secondly, it was fun to watch those funny Belgians take a bashing at the expense of the Netherlands. As the producers portrayed it, those evil Belgians are just handing out the antibiotics to anyone and everyone while those Dutch doctors are more level-headed. Well, what do you expect? No criticism over here about that. Oh, they might have got the naming right. Eindhoven isn’t in Holland. It’s in the Netherlands. Holland is a province of the Netherlands and is even divided into North and South.

On a more seriously note, the programme mentioned a so-called superbug called MRSA. By all accounts, this bacteria is more prevalent and potentially pervasive than SARS ever was. And it has killed more people than SARS ever will. But it’s nothing new. It’s been around for years too and yet, as the programme would suggest, the medical establishments in Europe are choosing to ignore it. There was a brief media frenzy over it in the UK but that media frenzy never translated into the concern, hysteria or overall depression that accompanied SARS.

One has to wonder about the responsibility of the media and the government in the debacle that was SARS. On the one hand, it’s nice to know you are in society that jumps at the mere sign of an epidemic, either imagined, real or created. On the other hand, one wonders why there was such a fuss over SARS when there are more lethal things out there that we can’t control. It is naive to think that the war against killer diseases started with SARS and has ended at all. Much of the efforts to improve public hygiene in day to day life have disappeared with the exception of the continual broadcasting of TVC’s telling us to wash our hands and so on.

What should be more worrying and should get more airtime is the potential infection of diseases like MRSA. While I wouldn’t wish the psychological depression and physiological infection of an epidemic on anyone anywhere, why aren’t we more concerned about these killer diseases that exist already and have bee with us for a much longer time than SARS? In Europe, one member of my family refused to see me during the height of SARS, for fearing of infecting his children. And what about MRSA? This I could have brought over from the UK quite happily by simply being in contact with somone who was infected with it. The figure they gave at the end of the programme about MRSA was 6000 deaths in a year for the UK.

I’d imagine that they would quarantine Hong Kong, impose a curfew and condemn the self-proclaimed City of Life to being the City of the Slowly Dying if any disease would have killed that number of people in a year. Or maybe they wouldn’t. These things are already here and the media frenzy has yet to be whipped up.

Again, I repeat my call to have media owners held accountable for responsible and accurate reporting. They can equally affect the policy, the economy and the lives of ordinary people as much as politicians can. Yet, most people in democratic or pseudo-democratic nations seem quite happy to ignore them and focus on the politicians that they can apparently choose to affect their choice of policy. While fining them evidently has little affect, and publically flogging them is a little inhumane, some sort of incentive to provide the truth in responsible manner must be found.

Tags: Random Thoughts