The growing MRSA nightmare

Slate had a really good article on what can be done to limit the spread of MRSA in hospitals and how Europe is doing a much better job on this than we are:

http://www.slate.com/id/2152118/

MRSA is serious alright. Currently I work in saturation diving. I monitor the life support of divers living under pressure for many weeks at a time inside a chamber complex. Recently we had to decompress all of our divers because of a staph outbreak in the chamber. Keep in mind, for every 100 feet of depth, the divers must decompress roughly 24 hours (plus another 24 tacked on to this). So, if the diver(s) have a life threatening case and they are at 400 feet, it will be 5 days before they can leave the chamber. Some divers don't appreciate what staph, and MRSA, are all about. Getting them to disinfect the inside of the system regularly can be difficult at times, especially when they spend 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, in the water working. Heck, they're tired. They don't want to come "home" and do chores. Can't blame 'em.

Before this job I worked with chambers in a hospital setting treating non-healing wounds. Hospitals have fought staph for years, but MRSA (and VRE) have been especially troublesome.

One reason I have a hard time getting truly worked up over things like Global Warming, or any type of over-population related issue is because I think that sooner or later this stuff is going decimate the population. At that time, the least of the world's problem will be too many people.

Thanks for the tip, Rod. Had never heard of this before.

The schools in our county have been stricken with MRSA too. The school officials tried to downplay it, as if it was only a nuisance, and not potentially deadly.

I'm thankful that we home school but this doesn't totally negate the possibility of exposure.

We go on field trips, to the supermarket, the library, etc. And it's so easy for children to touch something contaminated then rub an eye or scratch an arm... It's scary.

Scary stuff. I'm glad your son is OK Rod. My daughter got impetigo last year and our doctor was quite concerned. She broke out with it late in the week and I figured out what it was on a Friday evening, so she didn't get into the doctor until Monday. Turns out her staph infection was *not* the super resistant type, thank goodness, but I had no idea at the time how bad it could have been if it were. Had I known, I wouldn't have waited until office hours on Monday -- she would have been in urgent care Friday night.

I wonder about the massive amounts of antibiotics that are put into animal feed ostensibly to keep the cows and chickens healthy. This finds its way into the food supply and into us. Has anyone studied this as a possible contributing factor to antiobiotic resistant germs?

This *is* a concern. I don't know if it's specifically linked to staph, but other "superbugs" have been known to be passed from animals to humans. I avoid antibiotic treated animal products whenever possible, both as a health precaution and as a protest of the practice.

"What is your point, Kim? That I don't believe in evolution? If that's what you mean, then get over your stupid prejudice: many Christians accept evolution."

It's people like Kim that give Schadenfreude a bad name.

"Also, I wonder about the massive amounts of antibiotics that are put into animal feed ostensibly to keep the cows and chickens healthy. This finds its way into the food supply and into us. Has anyone studied this as a possible contributing factor to antiobiotic resistant germs?"

Absorbing antibiotics from treated animals doesn't seem to be much of an issue (call it 'second-hand antibiotic exposure'). The problem is with farms becoming sources and reservoirs of resistant bacteria because of the overuse & misuse of antibiotics. This drug resistance can then cross over to human pathogens. I'm particular miffed about Bayer's position with regard to the marketing of animal antibiotics.

Misuse of antibiotics in humans and a general decline in hospital cleaning practices also contribute to the problem. Actually, they just make the inevitable happen more quickly. The acquisition of resistance is inevitable: You just hope that the development of treatments can keep pace. It's possible that the half-century between 1950-2000 may seem like the golden age of when antibiotics performed miraculously.