Increase in staph infections bewilders local physicians

[Nottingham]

Increase in staph infections bewilders local physicians
By LEIGH HOPPER
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle Medical Writer
A 14-year-old baseball player from Alief, unconscious and on a breathing machine in the Texas Children's Hospital intensive care unit since Oct. 22, is the latest in an alarming series of hospitalizations triggered by antibiotic-resistant bacteria known as MRSA.

MRSA is the acronym for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a bacterium once seen only in hospitals but now widespread in communities across the country -- and causing severe, sometimes fatal, disease in Houston youngsters. In the past four months, Texas Children's has seen at least three deaths among patients with overwhelming staph infections and a dozen more children requiring ICU treatment.

"Something is going on. I know the intensive care people are very upset about this because of the deaths and the severity (of illness)," said Dr. Sheldon Kaplan, a Baylor College of Medicine professor and chief of infectious disease at Texas Children's, one of the country's largest children's hospitals. "I think we have a problem."

Typically, staph causes nothing more than impetigo, or small boils on the skin. But in its most ferocious form, staph can invade the heart or cause bone infections, pneumonia and blood infections. Scientists understand very little about why the microbe, which commonly resides harmlessly on the skin or inside the nose, sometimes turns deadly. Antibiotic overuse has been blamed for creating mutant strains that are increasingly difficult to control.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/2195114

more.....

This is the REAL Nightmare and its already here :bounce:

[truthisfreedom]

1. yeeech. i'm not planning any travel to texas.

i hope they figure out what's triggering the change.

[Kinkistyle]

3. Evolution

Natural Selection. This strain happens to be antiobiotic resistant.

[Warpy]

7. You've probably already got

...MRSA spores on your shoes. More and more cases have been showing up in the larger community, and not just in Texas. There is no sure way to avoid it.

The "good" news is that the bacteria are most deadly to the very young, the very old, and the sickly. Vancomycin is also effective in treating it, although a very long course of this very expensive antibiotic is needed, and it has to be given intravenously.

The bad news is that overprescribing of antibiotics has a few other resistant bugs out there, and some of them are resistant to Vancomycin. A very few cases of Vancomycin resistant MRSA have also been seen.

The local TV stations have started running PSA ads about not running to the doctor for antibiotics for every cold, flu and earache. It may be too little, too late, but it's certainly a message that needs to get out.

Kids should have 5 days to get over an earache. If the kid doesn't, that may mean there is a bacterial superinfection on top of the original viral illness, and THEN antibiotics may be appropriate.

The antibiotics that saved so many lives in the past 50 years may turn out to have been the most dangerous drugs of all.

[dolo amber]

10. This is the exact reason

I don't give my kids anitbiotics.

The local TV stations have started running PSA ads about not running to the doctor for antibiotics for every cold, flu and earache. It may be too little, too late, but it's certainly a message that needs to get out.

Now, I will and have given them antibiotics WHEN NEEDED which is about 3 times combined. (I have 2 kids, 13 and 3.) I am allergic to most anitbiotics myself. The 3 of us are some of the healthiest people I know insofar as colds or flu or infections of any kind. I preach this to all my friends who have kids with constant ear infections, bladder infections, etc. and who seem to live on Amoxicillin. Antibiotics are good and necessary if used propery, but you have to let children develop immunity on their own, or you end up with this type of "super-bug" and no defense against it. VERY scary stuff in the current climate.

[bicentennial_baby]

2. It's been coming...

for quite a while now, and it will only get worse before it gets better. I am optimistic about research that's going on though, such as the Russian work on Bacteriophage therapy. A Bacteriophage is a virus that infects a bacterial cell and causes it to burst. Hope for the future, but dismay at the current situation, preventable as it was.

[truthisfreedom]

4. ooh, tasty... fighting bacteria with viruses that make cells explode.

then they can attack rogue viruses with prions that make viruses explode, and fight unruly prions with... nanobots?

[Warpy]

8. Bacteriophage therapy

...may be appropriate, but in some instances, increase the toxicity of the bacteria they kill. That's why the whole line of research was dumped when antibiotics were discovered.

A more promising source for antibiotics is the lowly mushroom. Since they're related to the various molds that our antibiotics are derived from, this seems highly logical. Ancient humans used some varieties for their antibacterial properties, most notably the Iceman, who had a pouch full of them. Our next generation of antibiotics will probably come from them.

Now, if we can only convince doctors to stop prescribing them for every howling toddler with an earache (pain meds would be better, honestly) and every whiny yuppie with the flu, we may delay the day the next generation of drugs become useless.

[elfin]

5. Seems to be affecting school athletes more

We have had a few cases reported in Wisconsin - all athletes - were lloking to locker rooms as possible source.

[seventhson]

6. It's Radiation mutating the bacteria

Sakharov predicted this almost 50 years ago.

See Radiation.org

Or google Andrei Sakharov, mutations, radiation.

[hatrack]

9. Odd - the St. Louis County Executive died of staph this week

Happened just last Monday.

He'd been hospitalized for a back problem, came down with staph and died after 3 weeks in the hospital.

No word on MRSA presence, but it may well have been nosocomial (hospitalization-induced) infection that killed him.

[Ferretherder]

11. This stuff is SCARY!

My father just died about three weeks ago with staph pneumonia - they never could get it under control when he finally went to the hospital. Then, about two weeks ago, I was helping clean out a sewer at the trailer park where I live and I had a small little bump on my nose that resembled a fever blister, or something, and I guess I must have inadvertantly wiped my face without cleaning my hands and 'voila', overnight the little bump became a huge yellow 'scabby' looking sore and by that days end there were puffy,red sores sprouting up all over my lower face! Luckily, though it was staph infection, it was NOT MRSA, and a treatment of STRONG antibiotics knocked it out...... or I might not even be here typing this, right now! Sheesh!

[Nottingham]

12. Its Rampant throughout the nation and in the hospitals

:bounce: Somebody should get the statistics on this

WHERE is the CDC??? :bounce:

I think people should know which hospitals have more staph infections
and deaths whats the statistics???

Do they have this problem all over the World or is it US

:bounce:

[Elanor]

13. pharma, farms and lobbyists

I stopped buying meat and milk products that are raised with antibiotics years ago, when both my daughters had major allergic reactions to antibiotics they'd never been given. The PD said it was probably because of exposure from milk or meat. Before that I had no idea that there was enough antibiotic residue in our foods to cause allergies. No wonder we have so much antibiotic resistance.

Some years back I read that the Netherlands had banned antibiotic use in meat/milk production, and had worked to keep antibiotics from being prescribed for people when they weren't really necessary. I don't remember the details, but the good news was that after a while, fewer bacteria showed antibiotic resistance. If we could get Pharma's money out of the picture, maybe we could still improve things.

[Nottingham]

14. ELANOR that is an Excellent POINT I bet your onto the real

reason we have this problem

Antibiotics in our food supply :bounce:

[fishnfla]

15. Hey we're having the same problem here

a bunch of commercial fisherman got it, one died