antibiotics are administered to patients with symptoms of infection even before the lab sample has been
analyzed. The chances that they will receive the wrong drug or take a drug for no reason at all are at least
50 percent.
If a man suffering from sinusitis leaves the doctor’s office empty-handed and “merely” receives
advice on how to deal with his illness in a more natural way, he may think that his doctor hasn’t done his
job or is irresponsible. The physician too, facing a viral infection, often prefers the comparatively “safe”
option of an antibiotic to being blamed for not doing enough for the patient, particularly when the patient
is a child. Otherwise, the doctor might even risk a lawsuit against him. Even though the probability that a
child really requires antibiotics is as low as 1 in 100,000 cases, nearly 95 percent of all children taken to
the doctor are given such drugs. In most of these cases, antibiotics are being misused “to please” overly
worried mothers.
Antibiotics Damage The Immune System
“Antibiotics can hijack the immune system, leaving the body unable to defend itself,” says New York-
based family physician and natural medicine advocate Fred Pescatore, MD, author of Feed Your Kids
Well (Wiley). These anti-life drugs are routinely prescribed for benign or harmless infections. In any case,
an infection is not a disease; it represents the body’s natural responsiveness to neutralize and remove toxic
substances that are generated by such simple events as overeating, dehydration, consumption of junk
foods, and previous exposure to antibiotics. The body pays a high price for being exposed to antibiotics.
The poison of the drug destroys not only infectious bacteria (pathogens) but also friendly bacteria that
help us digest our food, remove toxins, and produce important micro-nutrients such as B vitamins. As
these essential, beneficial bacteria become eradicated by the drug, the gut’s population of destructive
bacteria begins to rapidly grow and dominate the intestinal tract (see section on Candida), turning even
nutritious food into strong irritants or poison.
The immune system, of which approximately 75 percent is located in the gastrointestinal tract, tries to
neutralize both pathogens and irritants by mobilizing its powerful defense forces. It uses the complex
biological response of inflammation to protect the body against these injurious stimuli as well as to
initiate the healing process for the affected tissue. Such an inflammatory response may occur anywhere in
the body. Swellings of the lymph nodes, fever, skin eruptions, etc., are all indications that the immune
system is responding and still intact. This fight can take from 2-6 days or longer, depending on the extent
to which a previous course of antibiotics has suppressed the immune system and damaged the natural
intestinal flora.
Antibiotic treatment merely succeeds in masking the symptoms of an infection while giving the
impression that the patient has conquered the illness, whereas in truth, it has become much worse.
Antibiotics actually prepare the ground for chronic disease to develop in the future. Since they stop an
acute illness that the body uses to help detoxify itself, the toxins will no longer circulate but are instead
deposited in the deeper structures of tissues and organs. Much of the antibiotics remain in the bile ducts of
the liver, which in turn alters bile flora and leads to the development of gallstones in the liver bile ducts
and gallbladder.
Each new course of antibiotics further disrupts the immune system and intestinal flora, as well as the
bile flora, making room for disease-causing microbes to spread throughout the body. With regular intake
of antibiotics, the immune system becomes so weak and passive that it is no longer able to defend the
body against real life-threatening situations, including those that lead to cancer, heart disease, arthritis
diabetes, MS and AIDS. This applies to people everywhere, both in the developed and the
underdeveloped world.