The modern medical establishment's arsenal
of over 150 antibiotics is collapsing. Let
me head up the section on medication with
this urgent plea, posted by Dr. L.K. Hardin,
October 1999: hopefully she won't mind me
quoting her:
"I have a rather strong opinion to not ever medicate a fish, unless you are an extensively trained
and experienced professional icthyopathologist
doing it for either research or other damn
good reason."These medicines sold at
local fish stores are often powerful antimicrobials
physicians use to treat serious infections.
Over the past ten years we have seen an alarming
accelerating rate of resistance to formerly
powerful medicines. In my city the rate of
resistance to cephalosporins by Streptococcus pneumoniae (the most common organism around— at least
30-40% of pneumonias) is a shocking 60 to
70%. Many of my patients die from multi-drug
resistant organisms every year. In the early
1900s, there used to be entire 1000 bed buildings
devoted to house sick and hopeless patients
dying from what is today thought to be trivial
infections from E. coli or streptococcus. Sixty years ago medicine
was no more advanced than
it was during the
black plague, when the
average person lived
to the ripe old age of
sixteen.
"The antibiotics have heralded this
new age of longer-lived and healthier people
and helped to generate the advancement of
science and ideas by allowing a person to
plan on living long enough to learn and research
and contribute to society. To recklessly
pour sulfa drugs, erythromycin, penicillins,
nalidixic acids, Metronidizole, tetracyclines
as well as antifungal medicines like miconazole
or fluconazole, or antiparasitic agents like
praziquantel or fenbendazole or levamisole
into a fish tank is mindbogglingly irresponsible.
Every time a colony of bacteria or fungi
or parasites are exposed to a chemical agent,
any group of organisms that survives the
exposure (the resistant colonies) multiply
and take over the playing field. Every time
someone uses these medicines or throws it
down the toilet or into the garbage it will
"expose" a given colony of organisms
somewhere. Within the next few decades do
not be surprised if we can no longer battle
many infections and once again see the horrible
"wards of death" as during 1920s.
It will be the most vulnerable who will see
the effects of drug-resistant organisms first:
your parents or grandparents in nursing homes,
your child or infant in daycare. The trend
of rising/accelerating drug-resistant populations
in cities is alarming.
"Whenever one of your $200 fish is not
eating well or doesn't look "right"
ask yourself these questions: 1. do I really
know what is going on? 2. can I really definitively
diagnose an infection such as Hexamita or
cellulitis? 3. could the fish have a cancer
or virus (hepatitis etc.) which nobody could
treat? 4. are there really any studies out
there showing the medicine applied to water
penetrates a fish's system? (no). 5. Are
there controlled studies that show that medicines
in flakes or pellets taken consistently by
fish treat any infections at the doses commonly
given? (probably not) 6. Are there studies
demonstrating the survival benefit of medicines
even in a case of definitely diagnosed bacterial
infection with an identified bacterial with
known sensitivities to a variety of antibiotics?
(no).
"Many of our antibiotics probably kill
as many fish as would save them: look up
the toxicity profile of any antibiotic--
the list is long: renal failure, liver failure,
anaphylaxis, skeletal toxicity, carcinogenesis,
etc.
"Given all of the above, is it worth
it to spend money on marketed medicines to
treat my expensive fish? It is not. Canada
outlaws the peddling of antibiotics for such
frivolous activities as domestic fish husbandry
by laypersons. The U.S. should do the same.
Until then please don't purchase these products."
