The discovery of pharmaceutical antibiotics around 80 years ago was touted as a panacea for humanity. While their use has clearly saved many lives, in recent years their overuse and misuse has taken a tremendous toll on the health of people everywhere, contributing to the creation of the now - infamous SuperBug.
According to Annie Wong-Beringer, Pharm.D., associate professor of clinical pharmacy at the USC School of Pharmacy, “Inappropriate antibiotic use may kill beneficial bacteria, opening the door for harmful bacteria to establish themselves in their place. It also may toughen up some bacteria by encouraging them to mutate and develop drug resistance.”
Drug resistance is considered to be one of the leading causes of deaths in the U.S. According to the National Institutes of Health, more than 70,000 die each year from it. These patients acquired the infection while they were in a hospital being treated for something else, according to the May 1997 documentary The Coming Plague. No known antibiotics can help these patients, and they die.
To make matters worse, experts estimate that physicians in the United States alone, write 50 million antibiotic prescriptions a year to treat disease actually caused by viruses, which antibiotics do not affect. Part of the reason may be patients’ or caregivers’ expectations. According to a CDC study, pediatricians prescribe antibiotics 65 percent of the time if they sense that parents expect them, but only 12 percent of the time if they sense parents do not expect them.
The western medical establishment is stymied. It’s looking for a solution through continued pharmaceutical research and the development of even more antibiotics…which created the problem in the first place. Duh! In addition, the big Pharmaceutical companies don’t even want to put money into antibiotic research, since it does not produce sustained profits.
Think about it. They dump millions and millions of dollars into research to create the latest super antibiotic. It works for a short time and then becomes useless because the bacteria has mutated to save their own lives! (What’s a poor little bacterium to do?!) If one wholly subscribes to the mainstream paradigm, the situation does indeed seem grim.
Essential oils are naturally antibiotic and antiviral, as has been documented in research around the world and more recently in the U.S. If you browse through a classic book like “The Practice of Aromatherapy” first published 25 years ago by French medical doctor, Jean Valnet, you will find innumerable references to such research and to the efficacy of essential oils in all kinds of situations.
In 1997, studies conducted at Weber State University on Young Living’s Thieves essential oil blend showed it to have a 99.96% success rate against airborne bacteria. The bacteria cultures were sprayed in an enclosed area, and Thieves essential oil blend was diffused for a given amount of time. After only 10 minutes of exposure, there was a reduction of 82% in Micrococcus luteus, 96% in Pseudomonas aeruginosa and 44% in Staphylococcus aureus.
To read more about Thieves essential oil blend and a variety of recipes for natural antibiotics, continue reading here
Blog Challenge Participant
The science of aromatherapy and essential oils is as old as the beginning of time, although it was lost through the ages and has only begun to make its re-entry into the modern world during the last 50 years. Ancient records indicate that natural elements were mankind's first medicine.
