Are YOU at risk?

With new research coming out all the time from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, it is easy to get overwhelmed with harmful side effects of our constant ingestion of low doses of antibiotics. In a previous posting that you may have seen, I talked about the CDC's warnings about the risk of infection from bacteria which is resistant to even the most rugged antibiotics.

 But how do you know if you are at risk of a harmful infection? What about your loved ones?

1. Chemotherapy Patients: According to the CDC, if you are someone currently on a treatment of chemotherapy, your risk of developing a drug-resistant infection are larger because of your lowered white blood cell count.

2. Patients of Complex Surgery: These are patients who have undergone any sort of transplants from liver, to heart, to even knees or hips. In all cases, these patients are given high doses of aggressive antibiotics to counteract any infections.

3. Patients undergoing dialysis treatments: Make sure that if you are on dialysis, your doctor understands the need to keep on the lookout for bloodborn infections. This is the second most common cause of death in dialysis patients.

Get this information out to your relatives as I am currently doing! It is important that as our bodies are subjected to more and more antibiotics out there and thus are becoming targets for antibiotic resistant bacteria, we must be on the lookout!

Geoff Barrett
Research Group


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