
People Are Buying Fish Antibiotics Because They Can’t Afford Human Ones - gridscomputing
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjxwma/people-are-buying-fish-antibiotics-because-they-cant-afford-human-ones
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DanBC
> Though generic antibiotics are often very affordable, or even free, at
> pharmacies, the cost of visiting a doctor to get a proper prescription can
> be prohibitive for some people, particularly people who don't have health
> insurance. Studies have shown it's common for people to keep old
> prescriptions of antibiotics to use in the future without a diagnosis, or
> even take their pets' antibiotics.

In England a lot of these people would get free healthcare, but wouldn't get
antibiotics because of stuff like antibiotic guardianship - a public health
measure to make sure people only get antibiotics when it's medically needed.

[http://antibioticguardian.com/](http://antibioticguardian.com/)

Do US doctors just prescribe antibiotics willy nilly? If you can afford the
doctor you'll get the 'script?

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o_____________o
Anecdotally, yes – most doctor's visits seem to end in steroid or antibiotic
prescriptions. I've known of some doctors that prescribe antibiotics for
things like colds just to give the patient a placebo.

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saurik
The doctor that I often end up seeing refused to let me leave once without a
handful of steroid samples: he took my insistence to not be prescribed them
_for a form of walking pneumonia we both agreed would go away on its own in a
couple days and for which nothing could really be done_ as some kind of
indication that I couldn't afford them, so he scavenged random remnants of
samples he had around... and also gave me a "just in case" prescription for
that antibiotic I didn't need or want. This is even after we had specifically
done a test in the office that both he and I knew meant I had a specific
mycobacterial issue that this antibiotic couldn't be effective against... I
just don't get it :/.

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DrScump
Vice's "sources" consisted of _tweets of Amazon reviews_ with not a _single_
patient actually verified or even interviewed?

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contingencies
Weird. On the subject of antibiotics, here in China it used to be that you
could buy anything. I've even seen military-grade mass produced physical rolls
of jungle antibiotics on sale near the Burmese border. Things are a lot more
controlled these days. It used to be that you could buy anything over the
counter, now in most places you need a prescription. Prices are dirt cheap,
though. It's rare to find a course of antibiotics for more than USD$3-4. Also,
China seems progressive on new types of antibiotics, whereas the US FDA drags
its feet approving things (see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roxithromycin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roxithromycin)
for example).

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jaggajasoos33
Why is that an anti-biotic meant for fish is cheaper than the one meant for
human if they are "nearly" replaceable ?

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pavel_lishin
Probably because since they're not meant for humans, there are less stringent
quality requirements.

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rukittenme
Fish antibiotics __are __human antibiotics.

