Flesh-Eating Bacteria Striking Gay Men - spread primarily through anal intercourse (MRSA USA300)

Life Site News ^ | January 15, 2008 | Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

[Billthedrill]

Matthew, with respect, I honestly don't think you understand how this works. My own credentials include a BS in Microbiology and a year of work in a pathogenic bacteriology laboratory. Now, may I ask you yours?

HERE is the Wikipedia entry regarding necrotizing fascitis. I would have hoped your research would have consulted at least this minimal source. In it you will discover that yes, these organisms do produce exotoxins. Those do not, however, magically digest anything.

“Flesh-eating bacteria” is a misnomer, as the bacteria do not actually eat the tissue. They cause the destruction of skin and muscle by releasing toxins (virulence factors). These include streptococcal pyogenic exotoxins and other virulence factors. S. pyogenes produces an exotoxin known as a superantigen. This toxin is capable of activating T-cells non-specifically. This causes the over-production of cytokines that over-stimulate macrophages. The macrophages cause the actual tissue damage by releasing oxygen free radicals that are normally intended to destroy bacteria but are capable of damaging nearly any macromolecule they contact in the body.'''

The involvement of the immune system is a fairly new facet of this multidimensional process. But this information is available at an undergraduate level and all of your sources are aware of it.

Our disagreement, if in fact we even have one, is over the use of a layman's term "flesh-eating" that has no real place in scientific literature. It is commonly applied to necrotizing fascitis - you have stated this yourself. Your article refers to MRSA. My point is simply that these are different things. The former refers to locus of infection and the latter to a specific organism that shows a specific antibiotic resistance. The former is an infection involving several genuses of bacteria, usually Streptococcus, the latter describes an organism itself (Staphylococcus).

The confusion may be over the term "necrotizing." Both genuses produce exotoxins that act in this way. That's precisely the sort of confusion that results from reliance on a lay term to describe a technical concept; it tends to blur important distinctions.