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Posts Tagged ‘cdc mrsa’

Swine flu + MRSA

October 23rd, 2009 1 comment

Dr Manoj Jain, infectious disease expert, spoke today on CNN about patients becoming coninfected with H1 N1 and MRSA.   We know that MRSA is very serious.   And this combination of both is doubly dangerous.  Many of the deaths so far from Swine flu are because of coninfections, many with MRSA.  This doctor went so far as to advise all medical providers to consider that a patient with Swine flu and  high white blood cell counts must be considered to be possibly coninfected and appropriate antibiotics  ( he named Vancomycin) be used right away .

So, if MRSA is a cause of increased complications and/or death in flu patients, why isn’t this word out there for patients.  We all  need to know that flu is not always just a mild disease and self limiting.  We need to know  that if we have flu with difficulty breathing and a persistant high fever that we need to be checked for coinfection.  We need to know that flu alone can kill but coinfections are even more likely to cause grave outcomes.

Why dosn’t CDC educate all of us about this?   I would love to see Dr Jain speak out everywhere and spread the word about this threat.  He spoke bravely today on CNN about how medical providers need to consider coinfecitons with all patients who present with flu and high white blood cell counts.  Is this information wide spread amongst our doctors and other healtcare providers?  If not,  it should be.  We as healthcare consumers and patients and all of our healthcare providers need to know that flu with MRSA (or other bacterial co infections)  can kill.  We all must be aware of the symptoms  and the necessity of early intervention.  The consequences are grave if the diagnosis is too late.

Congresswoman Jackie Speier, on healthcare reform and MRSA

July 29th, 2009 No comments

The web page I am directing you to here is how CW Speier addressed Congress regarding health care reform.

I liked the way she describes the fact that hospitals spew out these MRSa infections that kill people or drastically alter their lives and there is no one making them change. See the following quote from Jackie Speiers address on Health care reform and MRSA.

I want to tell you a dirty little secret. It’s a dirty little secret about health care that no one wants to talk about, and it’s about medical errors, and we have known about it for decades. The Institute of Medicine put out a report that said there are 100,000 deaths in America every year because of medical errors; 100,000 deaths.

Now, I’m going to talk about a specific bacteria infection that people get typically in the hospital. It’s called Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Now we say MRSA for short. Now, the MRSA infection rate is growing by leaps and bounds. In fact, there’s 100,000 cases of MRSA a year. Two-thirds of those people that get that infection get it in the hospital setting.

Now, of the 100,000 people that will get a MRSA infection, 19,000 of them will die because of that infection. Now, that’s a stunning figure.

If there was a 747 that crashed in the United States every week, that’s the equivalent of 19,000 deaths. And if there was a 747 that crashed every week in America, we wouldn’t tolerate it. We’d call on the FAA. We’d call on the airlines. We would stop it. But we’ve done very little to stop the spread of MRSA in hospital settings.

Now, this health care reform bill takes an important step, not a full step. It doesn’t go all the way, but it does now require that hospitals will have to report their hospital-acquired infections.

What we need to do, furthermore, is put the protocols in place so that we can stop these infections from occurring and we can stop the deaths as well.

She says it well doesn’t she?  I often make the same comparison with hospitals and restaurants…if restaurants served up food that killed people they would be shut down.  Hospitals literally get away with murder…..at least the ones who will not change their approach to MRSA and other Hospital Acquired infections.  Please watch CW Jackie Speier and get your representatives to support or co sponsor this bill, HR 2739, regarding MRSA prevention.

http://www.c-spanarchives.org/congress/?q=node/77531&id=9013445

CDC reaction to swine flu

May 3rd, 2009 1 comment

It’s wonderful to know that the CDC, homeland security and state health services can pull together and react to the very real possiblility of a pandemic of swine flu. Antiviral medicines are being shipped to the State of Maine as we speak. It’s only been a week or so since …was it 7 or 8 students in NY and a few others in California had contracted mild cases of Swine flu. All hell broke loose. We have seen doctors, nurses, the director of homeland security, the PRESIDENT, CDC representative etc all on TV talking about the flu. And of course EVERYBODY is talking about HANDWASHING!
So, I have to wonder why nobody from CDC, homeland security, state health services, Customs and Border protection, the President, Governors, doctors, nurses and other health officials NEVER address the 18,000 deaths caused by MRSA in 2006 and the many more thousands since then. NEVER, I have never heard it addressed in the news. I only learned of it while doing research. 18,000 is more deaths than AIDs/HIV, more than breast cancer and more than motor vehicle accidents. Yet, no big wigs have addressed it. And there hasn’t been one organized approach mandated to stop these horrible infections that attack us while we or our family members lie vulnerable in hospitals. I even saw Dr Salvatore the infectious disease doctor from Maine Medical Center on TV this morning speaking about Swine flu. He is the very same doctor who spoke out in strong opposition to my MRSA prevention bill,Maine LD 1038 and spoke of an upcoming vaccination for MRSA. Well a vaccine is a long way down the pike and we have to do something NOW about MRSA.

I think I know why there isn’t a huge alert out there about MRSA or C Diff or VRE or any other Hospital acquired infections. The answer is the last three words of the last sentence. They are acquired in the hospital. Citizens are not afraid to address Community Acquired MRSA. Schools and nursery schools have closed because of MRSA infections in their places. I have never heard of a hospital or even a hospital floor being closed because of MRSA infections, and believe me, there are plenty of outbreaks and deaths and disabilities because of these infections. But hospitals are not closed, and floors of hospitals aren’t closed, nor are they held responsible for the infections, nor do they report the infections to anybody, nor do they develop new strategies to stop the infections. They just bury their heads in the sand, fail to disclose the infections (in many cases) to the victims and families, and pretend it isn’t there…….well, until the NEXT infection. Until the next poor soul who’s knee joint fills up with MRSA pus, or the next person who can’t control their diarrhea from C Diff, or the next old person who develops MRSA pneumonia and dies, like my father did. Hospitals have remained untouchable when it comes to these infections. Believe it or not, hospitals are sometimes wrong. In Maine, they have been wrong about hospital acquired infections.
No, these hospital acquired infections don’t make the news, not much anyway. Then if they do, doctors, hospital officials and others who don’t want to face the music, downplay the stories and say there is way too much media hoopla over these infections. Hospitals and hospital officials,associations and doctors do NOT want exposure (no pun intended) of these infections.
Well, it seems that there is a lot of hoopla over several dozen mild cases of Swine Flu. It’s like a national disaster has struck. Unfortunately, there have been deaths in Mexico, but none here in the US.
Well, let me announce that there have been thousands upon thousands of deaths because of infections that patients are catching IN HOSPITALS. It is time the word was out there and the CDC, Federal government, State governments, doctors, nurses, Governors and THE PRESIDENT dealt with the reality of big numbers of deaths and disability because of infections people are catching in their modern hospitals. It is a disgrace and it is unnecessary. It is time to fight these infections. Investments in prevention need to be made and new precautions and practices need to be developed.
Wake up America. There is already a lot of deadly infection in this country and it comes out of hospitals. The threat isn’t your neighbor or your friend with Swine flu….it is your health care facility and the danger of infections spreading there.
I’d love to be able to make a living by going on TV and telling people they can avoid an illness by washing their hands and coughing into their elbow. My mother never made money teaching me that when I was a child but those experts are banking on it. It’s important, I know, to prevent the spread of flu. But, the experts aren’t really dealing with the tough horrible illnesses, like MRSA, C DIFF and VRE, now are they?