Paul Crooks DVM

Over the last cou­ple of months we have ad­dressed nu­mer­ous ar­ti­cles on the coro­n­avirus.

We not­ed there is no ev­i­dence of gov­ern­men­tal con­spir­a­cy, link to evolv­ing mo­bile tech­nol­o­gy and pets in­fect­ing their own­ers.

We al­so not­ed the virus is more dead­ly than the sea­son­al flu, masks and phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing are very im­por­tant to lim­it dis­ease spread and a re­turn to nor­mal life – in­clud­ing in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el, is per­haps years away.

To­day, we tack­le the is­sue of in­ges­tion sub­stances to treat or pre­vent get­ting sick.

Myth One: Virus­es are killed by bleach, and I’m sick. It’s el­e­men­tary – drink­ing bleach will cure me.

Do not drink bleach, dis­in­fec­tants, soap, rub­bing al­co­hol, hand­sani­tis­er and, for good mea­sure, don’t swal­low your flash­light or laser point­er ei­ther.

In gen­er­al, avoid con­sum­ing ined­i­ble items. In case of un­cer­tain­ty, please seek as­sis­tance over the phone from a sci­en­tif­ic pro­fes­sion­al.

Im­por­tant­ly, be­cause a chem­i­cal, drug, or sub­stance works well in one sit­u­a­tion does not mean it will work well in an­oth­er.

Dis­in­fec­tants are made for de­stroy­ing pathogens found on non­porous, in­or­gan­ic sur­faces.

Al­ways fol­low la­bel di­rec­tions!

Myth Two: I heard that this an­tibi­ot­ic or med­i­cine works for COVID-19, I’ll get a link up and start tak­ing from now.

Please don’t, use sub­stances as di­rect­ed. In vet­eri­nary med­i­cine, we are well aware that there are some com­pounds used in cats which can’t be used in birds, or that some med­i­cines need their dosages al­tered a hun­dred­fold for equiv­a­lent ef­fi­ca­cy in dogs ver­sus cat­tle.

Some med­i­cines have mul­ti­ple in­di­ca­tions, mean­ing they are used to treat dif­fer­ent types of dis­eases and the dosages may be al­tered for that rea­son as well.

Hope­ful­ly, this serves to il­lus­trate that no med­i­cine should be tak­en with­out prop­er di­rec­tion from your physi­cian.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, be­cause less is good does not mean more is bet­ter. Every drug is tox­ic at in­creased dos­es, in­clud­ing an­timi­cro­bials.

And, in the case of an­timi­cro­bials in par­tic­u­lar, not on­ly are they in­ef­fec­tive for vi­ral in­fec­tions, un­war­rant­ed and im­prop­er use con­tribute to the in­creas­ing preva­lence of med­ical­ly-rel­e­vant re­sis­tant bac­te­ria. These bac­te­ria re­main on track to be­come the biggest med­ical threat in the world by 2050.

Bot­tom line: no med­i­cines should be tak­en with­out the Ex­plic­it di­rec­tion of your physi­cian!

Stay at home, and if you can’t stay there, do what is prac­ti­ca­ble to stay safe!

In fu­ture ar­ti­cles, read­ers can ex­pect to con­tin­ue to learn much more about SARS-CoV-2, Covid-19, and its far-reach­ing im­pli­ca­tions.

In the mean­while, for more in­for­ma­tion on this or any oth­er health top­ic re­lat­ed to your pet, farm, or wild an­i­mal, please call us (868) 239-7837.