Please (Don't) Cough

In a finding that won't surprise most long-term users of minocycline, Japanese doctors recently observed that the same antibiotic is useful against chest infections. When a 64 year old woman with a 4-year history of RA entered a hospital in Kanagawa with breathing problems, tests and a CT scan revealed bronchiolitis obliterans. She was placed on minocycline primarily for her RA - a relatively rare condition in Japan - and after just three months of treatment she showed "a significant improvement in both arthritis and pulmonary function. Chest CT findings also improved after one year."

Dr. Thomas McPherson Brown, who pioneered the use of antibiotics in RA and related illnesses, noted several decades earlier that long-term users of the therapy were far less susceptible to respiratory illness than their 'healthy' counterparts.