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Antibiotic Seekers Rewrite Their Symptoms but Miss the Drug's Role
· New York time
More than a quarter of people reported lying to obtain antibiotics in a study covered by Ars Technica. The reported fabrications still pointed to infections that antibiotics do not treat, according to the report. Antibiotics act against bacteria, not viruses. That makes the study's finding an awkward mismatch between the desired medicine and the symptoms people said they invented. A more dramatic account is not necessarily an account that supports the treatment someone is trying to obtain. The reporting concerns what participants said about their behavior, rather than a finding that every request for antibiotics is dishonest. It also does not establish that everyone who misrepresented symptoms received a prescription. The specific result is narrower and stranger: the invented stories often failed to make the medical case their authors apparently wanted to make. The incentive is understandable as a story about people seeking a particular remedy, but the improvisation runs into a basic biological limit. Bacteria and viruses do not change roles because the patient gives a more persuasive performance. Clinicians must assess symptoms and decide what treatment is appropriate. In the study, some would-be scriptwriters appear to have given them a narrative with the wrong ending. The prescription pad, it turns out, is not obliged to follow the plot.
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