Trimethoprim-Sulfamethoxazole for Meningitis

Excerpt

To the editor: On reason that there is an increasing frequency of collisions between ethicists and physicians might be illustrated by the letter from Farid and associates (1), who used trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole for the treatment of pneumococcal and meningococcal meningitis. Since the overwhelmingly proved drug of choice for either disease is penicillin G, and since meningitis is not an innocuous disease, one wonders whether any semblance of informed consent was obtained from relatives ("three patients were drowsy and two were unconscious"). Since the authors state that the patients had not responded to "routine therapy," either they are reporting five cases of