Posted on 10/17/2007 6:57:17 AM PDT by zencat
A dangerous germ that has been spreading around the country causes more life-threatening infections than public health authorities had thought and is killing more people in the United States each year than the AIDS virus, federal health officials reported yesterday.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I know one person who’s had three people in her immediate circle all get a staph infection. None had been previously hospitalized. One had an open sore to begin with of unknown origin, and one had an insect sting.
I wonder if this person I know is a “carrier”.
I also wonder if the increased spread has to do with the inability to carry hand sanitizer (in anything but 3 oz in a baggie) on an airplane?
This staph infection isn’t a direct result of behavior choices, so the left won’t champion spending countless taxpayer dollars to prevent the consequences of it.
Use anti-bacterial soaps and hand products. Bring them with you on business trips and use them religiously before eating out and after flights/cabs etc. For kids, have them bring it to school, that is where much of this is spreading. Spray keyboards and telephones with Lysol, furniture occasionally.
Yes, some fatal conditions are more acquired than others.
I had a friend who died in just a few short days from a staph infection picked up while working at a hospital. Nasty, nasty way to go. It was just awful. And I think this kind of thing happens a lot more than is reported in the news. It’s only because the teenage kid got it and the schools are being shut down are we starting to hear about it in the media because of the “shock” value.
Yep.
We’re scared of Anthrax, or Ebola.
How clever to find and disperse a mutation of a common bacteria.
Could be that the bacteria or virus mutated on it’s own (they constantly do).
Or could be it was engineered in a lab and introduced into this country by an enemy.
Makes me wonder.
MRSA is definitely not engineered. The mutation is just a consequence of antibiotic use/overuse. It’s been around for a while, but it has just recently (in the past few years) escaped hospitals into the community. It may also be beoming more virulent, but it’s hard to tell from isolated cases.
I currently work with it in my Master’s research.
Here is another thread on MRSA. Post #9 has a good link.
Thanks for the ping.
I think the CDC has let us down. This is beginning epidemic stages for this disease. This is totally unusual for so many young people to contact MRSA.
I agree. It also sounds like there is NO TRACKING for this, NO REPORTING. They were guessing from 9 urban centers to project for the rest of the country on one of the threads I know I was on in the past few days.
They just don’t even know. It is disgusting.
bump for publicity
Every hospital that I know of has had MRSA cases forf the last 10 years or more. Actually, this is an epidemic when you have thousands of cases a year. Why the CDC hasn’t called it, I don’t know. It is very serious.
I believe one of the first threads we were on was from Great Briton. They are blaming the nurses for the problem. But it looks like this is a world wide problem .We haven’t heard from WHO yet.
A friend told me recently in a casual conversation that her dad had died from MRSA about one year ago. I had never heard of it.
Now it seems I am reading about it on almost a daily basis.
Just goes to show you what the overuse of antibiotics has reaped for us.
Prayers continue for you.
That’s right! I remember now. TEN YEARS?!! It is very serious. It is certainly very perplexing that this is being allowed to fester on such a large scale. Basically, it is criminal.
It is off to bed for me. This issue will need watching.
I just finished reading this thread. I am doing so much better, and thank you so much for your prayers. It was a scary time. Still have more to go through, but I think the worst has passed.
“It also sounds like there is NO TRACKING for this, NO REPORTING.
They were guessing from 9 urban centers to project for the rest of the
country on one of the threads I know I was on in the past few days.”
I know it’s a bit of a sidebar...but here’s a bit about infections
acquired while in hospital.
The UGLY truth is that sometimes hospitals KNOW they’ve got a real
problem with fighting infection, especially in the sad cases of people
that pick up awful infections just by coming in for a simple procedure.
And sadly, in one documentary I saw about the Pittsburgh area, the
hospitals have “gentlemen’s agreements” to not publically report
their level of problem with infections.
BUT, one Pittburgh doctor has gone on a crusade and is seeing lowering
of post-operative infections. He finally talked to the business suits
running the school and used REAL NUMBERS to show them that the hospital
basically lost a boatload of money on every patient that picked up
an infection in the hospital. That’s how Shannon got management
to buy into supporting extra efforts to stem infection.
Here’s link to a story about his fight against infection...at least
in the hospital environment:
http://www.ramcampaign.org/pages/presskit_dr_richard_shannon.htm
Until recently MRSA was pretty much confined to hospitals. Those who got it in hospitals typically had seriously compromised immune systems. My son was among them. It’s not so easy to anticipate its spread among the general population.
There is now a strain, CA-MRSA, that has spread among the public. Simultaneously, TB is recurring as well as other diseases we had assumed were wiped out decades ago.
At the risk of sounding xenophobic, one does have to wonder how much of this is related to waves of immigrants, legal and not, who have neither been immunized, nor follow traditional American hygienic practices. I.e., another of my sons worked at a very upscale yuppy supermarket in a department (kitchen) where he was the only US-born employee. He ultimately left because he was so disgusted that people working with food that was sold to the public couldn’t even bother to cover their mouths when they coughed, much less wash their hands. His co-workers were not Mexican by the way.
I’m glad you are doing better...
Will continue to pray though..
We love one another across distance through prayer.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.