Elephant in the Doctors Room - The Problem

Welcome to Dr Maya Podcast.

The podcast is the Key Note Address by The Chairman, Dr Kadiyali Srivatsa, Pioneer of Digitalising Patient Centerd Care, at the EuroSciCon Conference in April 2018 in Rome, Italy.

What Are the Problems?

Bacteria are among the oldest living things on the planet. They are masters of survival and can be found everywhere. Billions of them understand how important the gut flora and other body sites are for our health.

The gut microbiome starts developing in the womb, but the process takes off during birth itself when babies pick up bacteria from their mother's vaginal canal and skin. Friendly bacteria living in the vagina and groin enter our body as soon as we are born. The dramatic transition from womb to world is when a baby ingests some of the first that will colonize its guts. But babies born by C-section miss out on this process and end up with a different set of bugs, including some from the hospital environment.

Several studies have found evidence that this C-section microbiome could make the child more vulnerable to problems later in life. The vagina is their home, and so they take care of us until we die. This symbiotic relationship between humans and bacteria helps us stay healthy and enjoy life. Most bacteria in the environment may not be helpful or at least harmless, but few are not.

Before Alexander Fleming was awarded the Nobel Prize, claiming to have discovered "The Miracle Drug," Staphylococcus aureus fought back by developing an enzyme, "Penicillinase," that digested penicillin.

Scientists with knowledge and expertise in developing antibiotics developed Methicillin and other drugs to neutralize penicillin. They invade our cells, spread quickly, and cause havoc that we refer to generically as disease.

Millions of people used to die every year because of bacterial infections until we developed antibiotics. These wonder drugs revolutionized medicine. But one can have too much of a good thing. Doctors have used antibiotics recklessly, prescribing them for just about everything, and in the process, helped to create strains of bacteria that are resistant to the medicines we have. We even give antibiotics to cattle that are not sick and use them to fatten chickens.

Large and small companies still mindlessly market antimicrobial products for hands and homes, claiming they kill bacteria and viruses. However, these products do more harm than good because their low concentrations of antimicrobials tend to kill friendly bacteria (not viruses) and clear the way for the mass multiplication of surviving unfriendly bacteria.

Perhaps even worse, hospitals have deployed antimicrobial products on an industrial scale for a long time now, and the result is a sharp rise in iatrogenic bacterial illnesses.

The overuse of antibiotics and commercial products containing them has helped superbugs evolve. We now increasingly face microorganisms that antibiotics, antifungals, antivirals, or any other chemical weapon we throw at them cannot kill.

Pandemics are the major risk we run, but they are not the only ones. Doctors, homemakers, and hospital managers' overuse of antibiotics could mean that in the not-too-distant future, something as simple as a minor cut could again become life-threatening if it becomes infected.

Few non-medical professionals know that antibiotics are the foundation of nearly all modern medicine. Cancer therapy, organ transplants, minor and major surgeries, and childbirth rely on antibiotics to prevent infections. If infections become untreatable, we will lose most of our medical progress over the past fifty years.