in this thread there is a link to a Feb article in MEN's Health that explained that MRSA is affecting healthy young men thru gyms, and even some professional athletes are being hit by it.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1274926#1275083The article in MENS HEALTH has a lot more info than that Pittsburgh article:
The Killer in the Locker Room
http://www.menshealth.com/cda/article/0,2823,s1-3-67-0-1995-2-4-2,00.html<snip>
Monitor Your Staph
Until MRSA came along, the game plan of Staphylococcus aureus was pretty simple: If four guys play two-on-two hoops, statistically one of them will be a staph carrier, since more than 30 percent of all humans have the bacteria in their noses at any time. You could be a carrier your entire life, though, and never know it: For staph to become a problem, you'd have to be carrying a strain that's strong enough to cause infection and have it come in contact with a break in someone's skin. Ironically, that skin could be your own--a carrier can infect himself, by wiping his nose and then touching an open cut.
"What's new is that some of the strains carry a toxin that destroys white blood cells," says Frank Lowy, M.D., a professor of medicine at Columbia University school of medicine who is studying staph colonization. "If you get staph under your skin, a white blood cell eats the bug, and that's the end of it. But this bug easily kills the white blood cell, which attracts more white
blood cells. Eventually, a pus pocket builds up, allowing the bacteria to survive."
Like most of its contagious cousins, MRSA also has three great loves: humidity, skin cuts, and a weakened immune system. The opportunity for infection increases dramatically when these factors come together, perfect-storm-style, as they do in a gym. Locker rooms are damp and steamy, that game of two-on-two can lead to cut lips and scraped knees, and an exhausting workout temporarily lowers the body's resistance. Add to that workout gear that may not have been washed in days and you have the bacterial version of the Playboy grotto.
"If you're active and do anything that would traumatize the skin, you're potentially at risk," says David Gilbert, M.D., a past president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA). "I've had professionals, lawyers, doctors, who have all gotten boils from this strain." Fortunately, none died, but they all required stronger antibiotics than Dr. Gilbert is comfortable giving--not because of what they'll do to the patients but because of what they're doing to the bacteria. That's the catch-22: Powerful antibiotics are needed to kill MRSA, but using them will eventually create an even more lethal version of the bug.
Defunct Drugs
"It's natural selection at work," says Dr. Lowy. "There will always be mutant bacteria the antibiotic can't kill, and these may develop into a more virulent strain." And unfortunately, as antibiotics have become more prevalent--not just in doctors' offices but also in our food supply--we've sped up this evolution. For example, methicillin is the big-gun antibiotic that came after penicillin, but its current effectiveness is summarized in MRSA's name: methicillin-resistant.
We still might be holding staph infections in check if pharmaceutical companies hadn't shifted their R&D focus; instead of constantly trying to concoct updated antibiotics, says Dr. Gilbert, they turned more of their attention toward erectile dysfunction, hypertension, and heart disease. The IDSA reports that, as of 2002, "Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Abbott Laboratories, Eli Lilly and Company, and Wyeth all halted or substantially reduced their anti-infective discovery efforts." Over the past 30 years, in fact, only three new classes of antibiotics have been developed, and resistance to one emerged before the FDA had approved it.
Nevertheless, it's hard to fault the drug companies, Dr. Gilbert says. "Why spend a billion dollars on a drug that a patient will take for only 2 weeks, when you can spend the same money on a product he'll take for the rest of his life?" On top of that, antibiotics can quickly become obsolete. Pfizer could take 10 years to get an anti- biotic developed and approved, only to see it become defunct in 2. It's doubtful the penis will ever become resistant to Viagra.
Right now, the "drug of last resort" in MRSA cases is Vancomycin. Already, there have been three cases of Vancomycin-resistant MRSA. "That's very troubling," says Dr. Lowy. "The genetic information for this resistance can be transferred from one strain to another. And if that happens, we're facing a potential crisis over the next 5 years." There are other antibiotics, but they're not always available and can't beat all infections, warns Dr. Lowy. "Vancomycin is our workhorse, but it doesn't have the legs for a long race."
<snip>
All Washed Up
Surprisingly, the greatest source of hope in the fight against MRSA may come from the most common defense: soap and water. By making sure to wash their hands thoroughly and by keeping all cuts well disinfected and bandaged, most people can avoid spreading or contracting MRSA. "It's not going away," Dr. Lowy says, "but we have a chance of slowing it until new antibiotics, or even a vaccine, are created."
The NFL has begun sponsoring hygiene workshops for players and is encouraging trainers to disinfect hot tubs and showers regularly, according to Steve Antonopolus, ATC, head of the NFL's Trainers' Association. "There's a potential for MRSA to be everywhere in the locker room," he says. "Around trash cans, in cleats--everywhere."
Meanwhile, the IDSA has been lobbying Congress to treat MRSA like a terrorist threat. It proposes a "10 Most Wanted" list of bacterial infections, so that any drug company that goes after one would be rewarded with a "bounty" of tax breaks and extended patents. One Florida company, Nabi Biopharmaceuticals, is already in phase three of clinical trials of a staph vaccine, which would immunize recipients. A request for FDA approval is expected by the end of 2005.
"At this point, we project it for use only among high-risk candidates, like kidney patients," says Nabi spokesman Mark Soufleris. "But potentially, it could be used for millions of people." Best of all, Soufleris points out, it could take a tremendously long time before MRSA develops resistance to the vaccine. "Antibiotics attack the bacteria at one point of entry, but our vaccine creates antibodies that attack at multiple points."
Dr. Gilbert likes what he's heard about the Nabi vaccine. "Won't that be great, to get a shot and never worry about staph again?" he says. Till then, he urges, do what your mom always told you: "Change your clothes, wash your hands, and no roughhousing."
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