From: Cory Przybyla (recherchetenet@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Nov 12 2002 - 17:38:58 MST
--- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> --- Damien Sullivan <phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu>
> wrote:
> > But now vancomycin bacteria are cropping up --
> vancomycin being the
> > antibiotic
> > of last resort. Your use of antimicrobial soap or
> bad use of medical
> > antibiotics increases my risk of dying. Sounds
> like a real market
> > failure to me.
> > Anders, you might think about staying in Sweden --
> at least they
> > seem to be taking the problem of hostile
> replicators seriously.
> > Our new government
> > here would probably rather subsidize use of
> antibiotics by
> > agribusiness than ban and regulate their (mis)use.
>
> THe problem with this logic (or illogic) is that the
> vancomycin
> resistant staphlococcus aureus bacteria evolved in
> Detroit, which has
> been in the grip of the Democratic Party for who
> knows how many
> decades, as is to a lesser degree, all of Michigan.
> This bacteria
> evolved as a result of the liberal spread of needle
> exchange programs
> increasing the number of addicts in Detroit and drug
> addicts mixing
> vancomycin, obtained through socialist supported
> 'free clinics', into
> their smack to make needle trading 'safer'.
from the original article:
"That was especially true in the Detroit area, where
many intravenous drug users in the 1970s began mixing
antibiotics, including methicillin, with heroin. It
was a misguided attempt to avoid infection from dirty
needles, said Dr. Marcus Zervos, an infectious disease
physician at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak."
So, of course, when the needle exchange program came
around, they'd be *less likely* to mix antibiotics
into needles being that they wouldn't have the
misguided notion of avoiding infection from dirty
needles since the exchange program provided them with
clean ones.
And, moreover, it was reported that needle exchange
programs do not increase drug use:
http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/1998pres/980420a.html
which seems a reasonable enough assertion since 1, you
need to turn in a needle to begin with 2, the drug is
the commodity...when needles were scarce they were
shared by those in possesion of the drug, hence the
reason the program arose to begin with.
> Don't blame capitalism for this one
to be clear, I'm not asserting that capitalism is to
blame by my above comments.
__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
U2 on LAUNCH - Exclusive greatest hits videos
http://launch.yahoo.com/u2
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jan 15 2003 - 17:58:04 MST