[indices] Antibiotics? anti-infectives? What is in a name...[4]

["kae" <kaecherie@yahoo.co.uk>]

Greetings ! 

I just want to state that I stand corrected, I understand now from the
feedback I received through INDICES that not all antibacterials are
antibiotics, and there are really no other broad category term to include
antiprotozoals/anthelmintics etc except 'Anti-infectives', or the BNF
solution of titling the chapter "Infections". I quote from one reply, 

"Whereas penicillins, cephalosporins, aminoglycosides, tetracyclines might
be termed antibiotics (since they are derived from other organisms),
sulphonamides and fluoroquinolones are not antibacterials.

In terms of human pharmacology, I'm not sure it's useful to distinguish
between non-antibiotic antibacterials and antibiotics; indeed it is useful
to have a group term such as antibacterials to help us lump aminoglycosides
with quinolones.  In any case, there can be little doubt that
'antibacterial' means something that attacks bacteria whereas one cannot be
entirely sure about antibiotics (since some antibiotics are used for cancer
treatment!).

Unfortunately, 'antibiotics' is widely misused in the literature (sadly,
even professional literature) and people seem to have forgotten the
definition of the term.  It's therefore hardly surprising that Google finds
such a lot of hits for 'antibiotics'.

I feel that authoritative literature has a responsibility to use technical
words correctly.  My excuse for being such a purist is that many people
learn their use of technical language from souces such as formularies and we should not mislead them."   

So I am using the term "Anti-infectives" as the main chapter title and
"Anti-bacterials" for the sub-sections involved, and will be indexing
Antibiotics to refer to Antibacterials :-). Thank you once again and I do
appreciate this email list and have always found help when needed :-)! 

Best regards,
Kae