--Bruce Stallsmith
Huntsville, AL, US of A
A couple of years ago, I was unfortunate enough to be infected by a
disease that had become resistant to all but 3 antibiotics. My Fish TB,
*Mycobacterium marinum* (aka "fishkeeper's finger" or "swimmer's granuloma")
was cured only after six full months of taking a powerful and expensive
($6/pill) antibiotic twice a day. The nasty effects on my system of such
massive long treatment lasted for more months, after that. I still have
scars.
The situation is getting worse, as indicated in the story at:
http://www.freep.com/news/health/nstaph12_20021112.htm
Common human-used antibiotics are freely available at your LFS.
Tetracycline, erythromycin, etc. are particularly useless when put directly
into the water column (too weak to work at non-lethal dosage), and every
mis-application can leave some potentially resistant bacteria behind. Yes,
erythromycin can get rid of blue-green algae, but so can mechanically
cleaning it out and reducing the nitrate source (overfeeding?) that caused
it to bloom.
I urge you to campaign among your aquatic friends to get educated on this
problem, and to find ways to use antibiotics that are 100% effective, or do
not use them at all. Throw away out-of-date medications. Treat only in fish
food or other ways that assure adequate strength and duration to kill *all*
of the target pathogens. Do not use gram-negative-specific antibiotics to
"cure" gram-positive organisms and vice versa. If you can't tell the
difference, any use will likely cause more harm than good. That is exactly
why human use requires a prescription!
Folks here get very exercised over traces of pesticide or other stuff in
their tap water, or insignificant detergent residue on tanks or nets.
Believe me. Those concerns are about really trivial dangers, when compared
to the potential for toxic shock when you catch a resistant bacterium and it
reaches your bloodstream.
Compare the number of *aureus* hospital deaths in the article with the
totals from terrorist Anthrax, if you want some real perspective that you
don't get from the "politically-correct" press.
Take it from one who has BTDTBTWW!*
Sermon Mode <OFF>
Wright
______________________
* Instead of "Been There, Done That, Bought the T Shirt" (BTDTBTTS) this
means "...Bought The Whole Wardrobe!"
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