It’s not the superbug, it’s our own stupidity

Maybe the superbug — bacteria that are super-resistant to many antibiotics — is a Western conspiracy dreamt up to hit the Indian medical tourism industry. But the superbug is for real. It is not an import. It’s hard to dispute that cases of the superbug are
underreported in India where everyone at all levels is complicit in having bred it — the doctor, the pharmacist, the patient, and the health regulators. Understanding and remedying that is what we should really be bothered about, not conspiracy theories.

Let’s be clear about the core of the problem: superbugs are emerging in a medical environment where Indians are overdosing themselves on antibiotics. Thanks to a general lack of hygiene, low public awareness about contagion, and a lackadaisical regulatory regime, doctors are prescribing antibiotics at the drop of a hat. Patients are willing to go along to get rid of ailments, and pharmacies dish out pills without proper prescriptions.

In the Indian scenario, doctors prescribe antibiotics to patients even over the telephone, with patients sometimes suggesting the remedies themselves. This is not only against medical prudence, but also an invitation to self-medication.

Besides, it’s no secret how drugs get pushed onto the consumer in the first place. Medical representatives hardsell high-cost antibiotics to doctors through freebies, and few doctors bother to ask about their efficacy. In this scenario, it is worth asking if doctors have forgotten their Hippocratic oath — where the first requirement is that they should do no harm to the patient. Doctors who are trigger-happy about prescribing antibiotics are contributing to the emergence of the superbug.

Public health is now in conflict with commercial interests (with pharma companies, chemists and doctors in cahoots). Instead of prescribing holistic measures to improve health — diet, yoga, relaxation, and build-up of immunity — there is an unspoken understanding to place the industry’s financial health above that of the public’s. This is the conspiracy we need to be concerned about, not the western one against medical tourism.