Overtreating Kids, and the Shocking Truth About Alcohol in the US: Healthcare Triage News

Some kids are getting too many antibiotics, and some Americans are drinking WAY too much


John Green -- Executive Producer
Stan Muller -- Director, Producer
Aaron Carroll -- Writer
Mark Olsen -- Graphics

[scottgoblue]

I was prepared to face the music about my drinking, but apparently I still fit in the "social drinking" category. HOW IS 74/WEEK PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE

[joyspencer]

So, basically, alcohol consumption is distributed in America in the same way income is.

[MrDylan]

My jaw doesn't typically literally drop, but when you said the top decile drinks 74 drinks a week, my jaw literally dropped. That is an absurd number and absolutely terrifies me.

[OrganicGreens]

 Its a scary that the alcohol industry is dependent on a relatively small sample of alcoholics for half its profit. 

[liger]

Healthcare Triage My dad's one of those in the top ten percent, he often drinks a twelve pack a day. Yes they need help but that's easier said than done, alcoholism is extremely debilitating and very hard for those suffering from it to stop. You should do a video covering alcoholism, it's very serious and I think many people don't understand it fully unless they've actually had a close family member with it. Even then I don't fully understand it. Also if you covered what treatments work the best to get people to stop drinking that would be great, my dad's gone to rehab multiple times and nothing seems to work for him, and I'm worried it's greatly affecting his health.

[JanelChristensen]

We have a patient at the pharmacy where I work who once told the pharmacist that he had recently been able to get his blood pressure under control. He attributed it to taking his blood pressure medications correctly and deciding to stop drinking A CASE OF BEER EVERY NIGHT. So yeah, he would have been in that top 10%.

[tetsubo]

The alcohol producers of the world would like to thank that last 10%. Drink up folks, before you die!

I stopped drinking twenty-eight years ago. I do not regret that decision.

[taukid]

Having gone to college at the University of Wisconsin - Madison (which is almost always in lists of the top party schools) I was in the top 10% until recently. Now that I've graduated, I realized I need to cut down and have been doing so gradually.

[TrueGilby]

I don't think I've ever seen numbers jump so high in the last 10% of a (for lack of a better term) medically related study before. 

[Wehttamman]

I work in a convenience store in the UK and I have to say 74 drinks a week doesn't surprise me. Every day I serve the same people with the same amount of alcohol each time, no matter what the day of the week. There's a bloke who buys two 2L bottles of cider (5%abv), a 1.5L bottle of sparkling perry (7.5%abv) and a bottle of wine (11%abv). He shares that with someone else but then he comes in later on when he's on his way home and buys another two 2L bottles of cider!
I serve people who buy a bottle of vodka a day, and they also have jobs. drinking that much you'd think they'd be in a gutter somewhere like you think of a stereotypical alcoholic

[howarthe]

(3:45) 10% of Americans drink more than half of all the alcohol consumed in the US every year."  That is absolutely terrifying.  If we were somehow able to get them to drink responsibly, what would happen to the brewers and distillers of America?!  How can such a small group of people sustain such an enormous industry?

[TubaBuddha]

So the fact that my Mother had heart failure and then a week later a small stroke that put her in a nursing home for just over 5 months. And due to the stress, I bought about 7 bottles of honey mead, port and sherry in a months time, and then stopped till a month ago when I tried a 6 pack of hard cider. That puts me in the top 50% of drinkers in the country? I am amazed. If in a normal year I have a 6 pack worth of something at some point and I am still just under the top 50%, blows my mind.

[radicalbacon]

Then last time I got a sore throat, I was given a penicillin shot, and honestly, it helped. For a little while. Because placebo.
What it really was was mono (I was 28. Who gets mono at 28? This guy.) By the time I was put on steroids to help reduce the swelling in my throat, my throat had almost swollen closed, and my tonsils are scarred in such a way that I'll likely have to have them removed to prevent future infections.
Here's the kicker: when I went back for medical care because my throat was still sore and swollen after the shot, when I suggested the reason I had felt better was because of the placebo effect, I wasn't believed. I'm still kinda mad about that now. 

[LibbyKino]

Penicillin is the most commonly reported drug allergy (10% of people report it).  You can't make any sort of claim about whether or not unnecessarily broad ABX were prescribed without knowing whether or not those patients were even eligible to receive penicillin.  Even without knowing for sure, you could simply estimate that 10% of those patients who were prescribed an ABX had a penicillin allergy.  Approximately 10% of patients with a penicillin allergy also have a cephalosporin allergy and so they have to use even broader spectrum ABX like azithromycin.  Furthermore, S. pyogenes isn't the only bacteria that causes bacterial pharyngitis.  In fact, 3 of the 6 most common bacteria that cause pharyngitis DO NOT show up on a routine culture (Legionella, C. pneumoniae, and M. pneumoniae).  S. pyogenes is definitely the most common, but the others are not UNcommon.  My point here is that just because it's not Strep doesn't mean it's viral, and the clinical thinking here is that it's better to just prescribe a z-pack than to wait several days for a negative culture and THEN bust out the electron microscope to search for mycoplasma.  I don't necessarily agree (I think symptoms should be worse than a "sore throat" before any sort of empiric antibiotic treatment is prescribed), but I understand why it's done and it isn't always laziness or simply to placate the parent.

[EmilyTheresa]

I work in  a hospital, I just started there as an assistant, it surprises me the amount of people who come in with problems of alcohol abuse. It makes it feel like there are a lot more people who are alcoholics then there actually are. 

[aeder]

That information on alcohol at the end was MIND-BOGGLING!

[MoonGoddessArtemis]

I'd just like to address the producers/people who film this and say a big THANK YOU for listening to our complaints about the image and making it AWESOME again! You guys and/or girls rock!

[schpookendike]

A note about over treating children: I was a very sickly baby and had many ear infections (still have lots of them but not as much as when I was a kid) so consequently I spent basically the first 2 years if my life on antibiotics. Now as an adult I'm overweight. My family is made up of average sized people, my sister is even underweight though she eats more, fattier, and more carb filled foods and exercises just as much as I do. I've seen a few studies establishing this correlation. Could we have a video on it?

[StephenDahlke]

I wonder how much overlap between the "10% of Americans who drink 50% of the alcohol" and the "5% of Americans who cost 50% of our healthcare spending" there is. Then again, I also wonder how many of that top 10% live here in Wisconsin...

[SamuelSandeen]

I'd be curious to hear your opinion on the studies that say the optimal level of drinking is one two four drinks per day depending on weight.