Antibiotics and heart death

It was with some concern that I read the news that the antibiotic Azithromycin could increase the risk of heart deaths. Researchers at Vanderbilt University compared data of people who took the antibiotic and those who took other less dangerous antibiotics. The results showed a increased mortality rate for people who took Azithromycin and those who are already at risk of cardiac failure or those with cardiac illnesses.

Since I have no subscription, I could not read the full report published on the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). From what I understand, Azithromycin is a macrolide antibiotic, which prevents bacteria from multiplying by affecting their ability to produce growth proteins. It is known that macrolide antibiotics cause abnormal heart rates (arrythmias), but Azithromycin was considered safe like another antibiotic Amoxicillin. But the study by Vanderbilt researchers has proved otherwise.

For experts the estimated 245 additional cardiovascular deaths per 1 million cases may not be that significant, but this is an antibiotic that is frequently prescribed even in India. And poor souls like me have taken it.

I don't like IPL

I don’t like IPL. I am sorry to tell this. I don’t know the exact reason. But I still I do not like the tournament. May be, I don’t feel it is just cricket.

Cricket was serious, slow, and silent. May be that is the version I like. May be that is the misunderstanding I have. Cricket was not like someone’s metabolism gone haywire. The game was serious, thin, and decent. Stuffed with ordinary, decent, and quiet souls. It was never elite, vitriolic, or violent. There were only gentlemen, and not villains.

The beauty of cricket lay in hitting the ball through the ground, or not hitting it, or not hitting it over the  boundary line every time. Hitting the ball out of the ground, and using brute power to hit the ball over the green, thick bed of grass was more like unknown violence. Unnatural wooden acceleration against gravity. Man’s restless war against Nature. Sixes resembled violence against the leather, against the spectators, and against the bowler. More importantly, against the game.

The bowler was no longer a practitioner of the art of bowling; he was just a platform for fun, brutality, ecstasy, empty kisses, empty hugs, and victory bugles. And in the end, pity. Bowlers became poor and powerless as the ball soared along with the pride of the batsmen. Bowlers became something to be pitied; powerless against the strength of the demigods who unleashed brute power on the madness and the maddening crowd.

Batsmen: the lifeless medium of pride and profit, and 200-plus scores. They were the super class who showed the entire gullible world their other side. The faces were different and dim when the pitches were grass and solid, and the temperature freezing. When the pitch resembled the one in Dharmashala, the story was entirely different. It was these victorious knights who were powerless, while the ball flew hither and thither, and the bowler was the king. True warriors keep on winning no matter where the battles are fought.

The winning warriors that you see in IPL today may morph into tomorrow’s losers, or may vanish into thin air just like many others. Or, they may mutate into something much bigger than their IPL character.

Today, the millions, who have left their senses somewhere, may clap, scream, or jump for unknown reasons. Tomorrow, the seats they have occupied may be empty. And they may regret the time, effort, and money wasted on meaningless entertainment.