Some worrying posts in the last half a page.
The problem is simple:
Antibiotics courses are meant to be taken to completion with one express purpose: killing ALL of the bacteria in question. Antibiotics are selected so that the weakest available AB that will do the job comfortably is prescribed (in theory).
If you don't kill ALL the bacteria in question, ANY survivors of that strain will be immune due to limited exposure to the antibiotic. That means you can never again use that antibiotic to treat that strain of bacteria. Ever.
And that means you need to use ever more stronger ABs in order to treat recurring infections. Those are expensive, and thanks to general human stupidity in not following Doctor's orders, people don't take a complete course and make things even worse in future. This is the kind of process that leads to wonderful bugs like MRSA (Methicillin resistant staph. aureus - aka Golden staph). Methicillin is a very useful AB that is slowly becoming useless, and stronger ABs are also becoming useless against other superbugs (eg Vancomycin Resistant Enterococcus - a nasty strain of gut/digestive bacterial infection now resistant to vancomycin).
Most infections/colds people get are viral infections. The easiest way to tell the difference is smelling breath of the infected person. If their throat is sore and their breath smells foul - thats usually bacterial and needs/might need ABs. If it doesnt smell, its often just viral.
And flu shots are another thing - each season the flu shot is designed to afford protection against the strains of flu forecast to be most likely to spread far and wide, balanced against severity. There are a smaller number of classes of flu viruses, but each strain can be quite different in terms of what shots will protect you for them. So if you get the flu shot and the herd gets the same flu shot, it may open the door for a 4th or 5th flu to successfully spread in lieu of the other three that have been successfully immunised against.
I just have one hope and thats that AusGAF doesnt go down the immunisation = ADHD argument path otherwise I'm going to reach through your monitor and slap you for it. Yes, that means you.
