Published 18 August 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a1143
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a1143

Letters

Antibiotics for coughs and colds

Goodbye, virus

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

In 1996 Kai explored the difficulties for parents living in a disadvantaged community of coping with acute illness in their children. They found that doctors’ explanations of the illness and its treatment, which involved use of the concept of a "virus," unhelpful and unsatisfactory.¹ They thought that the use of antibiotics should relate not to the cause of the illness, but to its severity. In doing so he anticipated the recommendations of the guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) for respiratory tract infections in primary care by 12 years.^{2 3} The word virus does not feature at all in the guideline’s 121 pages; viral appears only five times peripherally.

Given the lack of evidence that we can use these words or concepts in a useful way, either to determine what is the best treatment or to explain the illness to the patient, is it now time . . . [Full text of this article]

¹ Warders Medical Centre, Tonbridge, Kent TN9 1LA

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