Why don't we have over-the-counter anitbiotics and all? Just curious as to the reason why.?

If you really want diseases that are anti-biotic resistant-be my guest. Too many people do not complete their course of anti-biotics. Ergo, they feel well, but the infection has not been totally eliminated. Afew months later they go back with an anti-biotic resistant infection. That is why. The doc should be putting the fear of god into them to complete the course

One reason antibiotics aren't sold OTC is because there's no such thing as an "all-purpose" antibiotic. Antibiotics are used to treat a wide variety of many different kinds of illnesses; and the strength of the antibiotics and how many days it's to be taken and how often it's to be taken are determined by which specific illness it is designed to treat. If antibiotics were sold OTC, the average person couldn't walk into a pharmacy and buy a bottle of antibiotics and know which antibiotic of the 100's that would be available he needed to buy, or even if he has the illness it is designed to treat.

Regardless of what the OP believes, Canada (nor any other country) provides "free" health care for its citizens. The patient might not pay directly, but he's paying indirectly - through his taxes. The money to provide "free" health care has to come from SOMEWHERE! Where else would it come from, except through taxes from the country's citizens?

From a libertarian point of view, there are many prescription medications that probably ought to be sold without prescription so that if a patient is sophisticated enough to manage them on his/her own, they can do so without having to pay for a doctor. Examples include birth control pills, some of the safer blood pressure meds, some of the safer diabetes meds, cholesterol meds, etc.

Antibiotics, however, are an exception. The reason is that overuse and inappropriate use of antibiotics encourages the development of resistant strains of bacteria which are a problem for everyone - not just the person misusing them. Making matters worse is that making the diagnosis of an illness that requires antibiotics is not easy and requires mastery of a fair amount of material and often access to a fair amount of testing. Finally, matching an appropriate antibiotic to an infection is not simple and again, requires mastery of a fair amount of material in pharmacology and microbiology.

Mexico has long had belief that all medications (other than those with abuse potential) should be available over the counter and if a patient knows what medication they require, they should be able to buy it without seeing a doctor. Recently, however, they've changed their minds about antibiotics. Now they require a prescription for antibiotics along with the drugs with abuse potential. The others are still over the counter.

It's to prevent unnecessary use of antibiotics which can lead to resistance. In the future it'll be very difficult to eradicate infections if you get one.

Many medications can be dangerous if taken in the wrong doses. Antibiotics are already being over prescribed by greedy doctors who get kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies to sell drugs to people who don't really need them. With antibiotics this is causing the bacteria to become resistant to these drugs and it is a major concern as we are now seeing bacterial infections antibiotics will no longer kill off. This means that people are now dying from diseases that a few years ago antibiotics used to clear up very quickly. Back before Antibiotics became usable many people died of infections, but we have had 75 years of antibiotics where antibiotics killed these infections but slowly more and more antibiotic has had to be used as the bacteria became more and more immune to these drugs. Diseases like gonorrhoea are getting to the point that antibiotics cannot cure certain strains and there are other diseases that are getting to the point of being incurable because the bacteria have mutated so the Antibiotics no longer kills them.

Medical officials are pressuring doctors not to prescribe antibiotics where they will do no good just so they can receive the kick back money from the drug companies hoping to stall the inevitable day antibiotics will no longer cure many diseases until a new type of antibiotic can be found to replace our current but failing ones.

People would overuse them and cause more antibiotic resistance.

They would become useless after a generation.

Mostly because the average person has no idea how to properly use such medications and the overuse of them is harmful to all people through acceleration of bacterial resistance ot the products.

It's because specific antibiotics need to be taken for specific bacterial conditions over a particular time according to particular patients. There isn't a one sizer fits all, here. There are several kinds of antibiotics as well as several strengths. Furthermore, if they were available over the counter they would be used for self-diagnosed conditions that may not need antibiotics. Another thing, we humans are getting immune to antibiotics so that overuse will made them ineffective and we will start dying from the illnesses that antibiotics, till now, have cured.

So basically you used this question to go off on a rant?