Just imagine you have an illness and you are confronted by not one, but two doctors.

The first one after examination confirms your illness and gives you a bottle of pills - take one a day.

The second one then tells you to take twice the dosage.

You have two expert opinions here, so what do you do? One may be enough... but if it isn't, surely there is no harm in taking two? If there was, the second would not have prescribed that (I am assuming no malice and also no incompetence). So you take two, you get better.

The medication of the second doctor worked. News spreads, everyone starts taking two tablets instead of one. The same also happens for other medications.

You end up with an overmedicated society where people are afraid to just take the one tablet which would cure the symptoms just as well.

However, there is a problem lurking under this vision of slightly inefficient society - the bugs, bacteria etc mutate to counteract the effects of the medication.

The simple mutations, the less dangerous ones are killed by the medication, but the more dangerous ones that can fight off the effect of the medication live on, multiply and are more dangerous. You suddenly have superbugs that need to be fought with stringer and stronger medication.

Where am I going with this? nowhere really. Just wanted to link to the above from a couple of forum topics.

(just to add, while there may sometimes be personal risks - especially if this is taken literally when discussing strong medication, the major problem in the metaphorical use lies when it becomes the norm instead of a singular well thought out personal choice.)