>> ...it seems almost unimaginable to die in childhood.
According to the CDC, "Infant mortality is an important indicator of the health of a nation" and the US has been lagging compared to other developed nations for some time [1]. At a rate of ~7 deaths per 1,000 births, with ~4 million births per year [2] - that's 28,000 dead babies per year in recent times.
(I realize that childhood death is different from death at child birth, my point is that it's certainly not unimaginable. Also, the number of childhood deaths per year due to natural illness seems quite high - [3].)
You're right that on average, we're living longer, but living longer and living disease free are two completely different things.
>> Summing up, antibiotics are not making us generally ill.
The main point of the article is that the overuse of antibiotics is making us ill because we have destroyed good bacteria along with the bad. Have you shown anything to disprove that? They described the science they are doing to explore this and linked to studies that support their theory. All of your links talk about mortality and one for obesity.
For comparison, in 1935, the infant mortality rate was 55.7 per 1000 live births (compared to 6 per thousand today). Averaging a decline of 3.1% per year.
According to the CDC, "Infant mortality is an important indicator of the health of a nation" and the US has been lagging compared to other developed nations for some time [1]. At a rate of ~7 deaths per 1,000 births, with ~4 million births per year [2] - that's 28,000 dead babies per year in recent times.
(I realize that childhood death is different from death at child birth, my point is that it's certainly not unimaginable. Also, the number of childhood deaths per year due to natural illness seems quite high - [3].)
You're right that on average, we're living longer, but living longer and living disease free are two completely different things.
>> Summing up, antibiotics are not making us generally ill.
The main point of the article is that the overuse of antibiotics is making us ill because we have destroyed good bacteria along with the bad. Have you shown anything to disprove that? They described the science they are doing to explore this and linked to studies that support their theory. All of your links talk about mortality and one for obesity.
[1] http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db23.htm [2] http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005067.html [3] http://www.childdeathreview.org/2005Data/US2005.pdf