by: PF Louis
(NaturalNews) Dependence on antibiotics has spawned a plethora of antibiotic resistant pathogens, such as MRSA bacteria, which are becoming epidemic. Most, not all, of those antibiotic resistant microbes were generated in hospitals. Some doctors and hospital administrators are forced into looking at copper and silver to effectively minimize antibiotic resistant strains of pathogens.
During a period in time when there was a high birth mortality rate for infants and mothers in the nineteenth century, Austrian-Hungarian obstetrician Ignaz Semmelweis told his fellow doctors that they should wash their hands thoroughly between delivering babies. He was labeled insane and professionally ostracized. This lead to Semmelweis's death in an insane asylum.(1)
Of course he was proven right after being victimized by medical scientific arrogance. This arrogance is a factor in today's suppression of safe and efficacious healing protocols. Of course, Big Pharma is an even bigger factor. But the obstetrician who was victimized for recommending hand washing between deliveries died before Big Pharma came into its current power.
The mainstream medicine's arrogant reliance on antibiotics in hospitals and clinics has caused some carelessness with standard hygiene precautions to reappear. Even antibacterial soaps add to the surge of antibacterial resistant microbes. The more pathogenic bacteria are confronted by antibiotic substances, the better they get at adapting into strains that are resistant.
The MRSA microbe is the most publicized because it can be lethal. A November 2009 Henry Ford hospital report claims dangerous Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) bacteria are approaching epidemic status. Hospitals were the primary source of this bad bug and others. After spreading into communities and infecting locals, infectious microbes proliferated.(2)
Antibiotics were losing their effectiveness. Widespread antibiotic use contributed to the bad bugs learning to survive antibiotics.
Antibiotics destroy beneficial bacteria as well. We are all full of bacteria. There are more bacteria in our bodies than cells. The vast majority, an estimated 85%, aid with digestion and trigger appropriate immune responses to invading pathogens. So losing any portion of that 85% good (probiotic) bacteria lowers immunity while impeding proper digestion of nutrients from foods.
Consequently, constant antibiotic use without taking in probiotic substances to balance out the losses of friendly flora and bacteria results in long term poor health. Very few doctors warn you of this when they write your antibiotic prescriptions.
Natural Antibiotic Solutions
Silver and copper have been known to have antimicrobial properties for centuries. Silver especially has a reputation for going after the pathogenic microbes exclusively, leaving the beneficial bacteria alone to thrive. Colloidal silver is ionized silver particles suspended in distilled water. Nano particle suspension is ideal. Despite these known facts, colloidal silver was recently banned in the EU.(2)
In 1999, when MRSAs super bugs first began to threaten hospital and community health, the American FDA declared it illegal to promote antibacterial properties on colloidal silver labels or product advertising. Big Pharma can't patent or possess silver, so there's no money to be made from exploiting illness with patented high priced pharmaceuticals, especially when ordinary folks can make their own.
Big Pharma makes more money from constantly creating newer antibiotics attempting to compensate from drugs failing to kill pathogens because of antibiotic resistance. Nevertheless, four international clinical trials have proven colloidal silver's efficacy without destroying beneficial bacteria.(3)
Some hospitals use silver coated catheters and colloidal silver bandages, especially among burn victims, to reduce potential infections.(4)But hospitals are currently more interested in another metal to reduce infections from hospitals. That metal is copper. This copper is not in colloidal suspensions. It's hardware used for railings, door knobs, and table tops in hospitals, anywhere people touch.
Copper is meant to eliminate germs spread by physical contact, grabbing or touching, before they enter into one's body. And trials have proven that copper used where doctors, health workers, patients, and visitors commonly touch reduces bacteria up to 97%.(5)
Many hospital doctors and administrators are seeing the light with copper. Though this is a reassuring trend, stemming the tide of antibiotic resistant microbes will not be immediate. What's involved is redesigning and manufacturing bedside railings, door panels and door knobs, electrical switches as well as table tops. A whole industry is emerging to fill the upcoming demands for installing copper in hospitals.(6)
In other words, this is currently a logistical problem involving finances, design, manufacture, and installation. The sooner copper is implemented as part of hospital infrastructure, the faster progress will be made at minimizing antibiotic resistant microbes and hopefully reducing public consumption of destructive antibiotics.
Thankfully, this is one area of natural health that is outside the jurisdiction of Big Pharma's protector, the FDA.