Guest guest Posted March 12, 2007 Report Share Posted March 12, 2007 > > The thing about arsenic is it was used quite commonly for a very long > time, for things like syphillis, until antibiotics came into existence. > Then a big publicity campaign ensued to convince the public it was > dangerous, even in the tiny amounts used medicinally, so that we would > adopt the new drugs and eventually make it illegal. > Well, it was used for syphilis right up until 1944-5 when penicillin > came out... and I don't think there's much question that penicillin is > legitimately far safer. Hmm I totally forgot that pen kills people by anaphylaxis sometimes... apparantly 400 /yr in the US... http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/p/penicillin_allergy/deaths.htm ....I assume that figure accounts for all of the different penicillin molecules... still, there must be millions of scripts /yr, so the death rate is rather low... and I think bad side effects were common in the arsenic days when syphilis was treated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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