MRSA: Public Health Approach Often Lacking in Hospital

Creating Health Institute and Natural Health News as well as The Oake Centre for natural health education has been working on effective approached to MRSA since 1993.  We have some effective ways to address this because we think outside the box. Search for our many articles using the box in the right column.

Many hospitals don't screen for MRSA

CHICAGO, Aug. 23 (UPI) -- Less than half of U.S. hospitals screen for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a strain of bacteria resistant to antibiotics, researchers say.
Yoojung Yang, a fellow at the University of Illinois at Chicago, says 43 percent of the 102 U.S. hospitals responding to a survey have a procedure in place to screen patients for MRSA.
Yang explains prevention is the best treatment for MRSA -- a staph infection in healthcare patients caused by a strain of bacteria resistant to antibiotics.
Yang and colleagues say their survey indicates nearly all of the responding hospitals have adopted hand-hygiene practices. Some have also adopted other preventive practices such as using gowns and gloves and isolating MRSA-positive patients.
Nearly 75 percent of the surveyed hospitals also fight MRSA by reviewing prescriptions orders. More than half place restrictions on the use of select anti-microbials -- especially newer drugs such linezolid, daptomycin and tigecycline -- to maintain optimal use and to reduce the risk of bacterial resistance.
"The results of our survey suggest that pharmacists play a key role in the treatment of MRSA infections, because they have the knowledge of how best anti-microbials can be used," Yang said in a statement.
The findings are published in the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacist.

© 2010 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

And on another agency front, FDA admits to not testing seafood for toxic heavy metals

Dirtiest Find in the Hospital: Cell Phones

Several years ago I raised the issue of a problem related to infection control directly related to the cell phone use of doctor's in hospital.

EMF generated by cell phones and other similar EMF producing appliances creates a static charge that draws bacteria to these units. As the doctors go from patient room to patient room they collect and transport ever more dirt!

I liken this to the Ignatz Semmelweiss discovery that hand washing between patient visits reduced hospital infection rates. Disinfecting the cell phone in between rooms might help too, in the more modern health outpost.

A year or so ago some attention was drawn to computer keyboards in the MRSA discussion, and this article supports the issue -

Keyboard that warns users when it is dirty could banish hospital superbugs
By Daily Mail Reporter, 18th June 2008

Health chiefs are spending £1 million on the latest weapon against superbugs - "infection-resistant" computer keyboards.

Experts at University College London Hospital have developed a keyboard which is easier to clean than conventional designs.It also includes an alarm to warn staff when it needs cleaning.

The flat silicone keyboards will be rolled out in hospitals across England, and it is hoped they will save the NHS millions cut rates of MRSA by 10 per cent.

Microbiologist Dr Peter Wilson helped develop the keyboard. Just last month he found the average keyboard was five times dirtier than a toilet seat. Swabs taken from office and hospital desks revealed 150 times the recommended limit for bacteria.

"Should somebody have a cold in your office, or even have gastroenteritis, you're very likely to pick it up from a keyboard," the professor said.

The NHS spends more than £1.6 billion a year on combating superbugs.

There has been a huge drive to encourage nurses and doctors to wash their hands between examining patients but a persistent problem is staff spreading infection by touching keyboards, picking up bacteria and then transferring this to other surfaces.

Research by microbiologists at UCLH has shown bacterial levels on the new style keyboards fall by 70 per cent if they are cleaned every 12 hours.

UCLH microbiologist Dr Peter Wilson, who helped invent the keyboard, said: "Doctors and nurses were going from patient to keyboard without washing their hands.

"That's quite understandable because you would wash your hands between patients but not between a patient and a keyboard."

Traditional keyboards are high-risk areas in hospitals because they can harbour bacteria and cannot be cleaned with water or fluids.

Keyboard covers are also to blame for spreading infection because they are rarely cleaned so hospital workers who use them spread potentially lethal bacteria.

The new type of computer keyboard has hidden sensors to make sure its surfaces are cleaned properly with alcohol wipes.

Manufactured by American company Esterline and distributed by British firm Advanced Power Components, it has incorporated a warning light system that activates every three or 12 hours.

The keyboard is also covered with a hypo-allergenic material resistant to bacterial growth.

Artificial fingernails also became part of this discussion.

And now over six years later, the dirty phone issue raises once more its ugly head.

Mobile phones have 18 times more bacteria than toilet handle

By Andrew Levy
Last updated at 8:51 AM on 30th July 2010

They are pretty much essential, but you may want to ditch your mobile phone for ever after reading this.

The average handset carries 18 times more potentially harmful germs than a flush handle in a men's toilet, tests have revealed.

An analysis of handsets found almost a quarter were so dirty that they had up to ten times an acceptable level of TVC bacteria.

One of the phones in the test had such high levels of bacteria it could have given its owner a serious stomach upset.

While TVC is not immediately harmful, elevated levels indicate poor personal hygiene and act as a breeding ground for other bugs.

The findings from a sample of 30 phones by Which? magazine suggest 14.7million of the 63million mobiles in use in the UK today could be potential health hazards.

Hygiene expert Jim Francis, who carried out the tests, said: 'The levels of potentially harmful bacteria on one mobile were off the scale. That phone needs sterilising.'

The most unhygienic phone had more than ten times the acceptable level of TVC and seven were above the threshold.

This worst handset also had 39 times the safe level of enterobacteria, a group of bacteria that live in the lower intestines of humans and animals and include bugs such as Salmonella.

It boasted 170 times the acceptable level of faecal coliforms, which are associated with human waste.

Other bacteria including food poisoning bugs e.coli and staphylococcus aureus were found on the phones but at safe levels.

Which? researcher Ceri Stanaway said: 'Most phones didn't have any immediately harmful bacteria that would make you sick straight away but they were grubbier than they could be.

'The bugs can end up on your hands which is a breeding ground and be passed back to your phone. They can be transferred back and forth and eventually you could catch something nasty.

'What this shows is how easy it is to come into contact with bacteria. People see toilet flushes as being something dirty to touch but they have less bacteria than phones.

'People need to be mindful of that by observing good hygiene themselves and among others who they pass the phone to when looking at photos, for example.'

Which? has previously found that some computer keyboards carry more harmful bacteria than a lavatory seat.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1298057/Mobile-phones-18-times-bacteria-toilet-handle.html##ixzz0vUl6drSD

I'd suppose this might give you pause for reflection. It should to the health care CEOs who have a head in the sand approach to the MRSA concern.

MRSA - Alternative Cure For 'Flesh-Eating' Bacteria

UPDATE: 26 December 2009 -

A new study reports a surge in drug-resistant strains of a dangerous type of bacteria in US hospitals: Acinetobacter strikes patients in Intensive Care Units (ICUs) and others and often causes severe pneumonias or bloodstream infection, some of which are now resistant to imipenem, an antibiotic that is reserved for last-line treatment. 

Read Complete Story - New Strain of Resistant Bacteria Reported

I'm not sure how many times we have to read similar articles over the 16 years I have been involved in this issue in me effort to get some repsonse from MS medicine and MS media, while thousands suffer or die.

Once again I'm posting my challenge, a repost originally from August 2006.  I'm expecting a response, as I usually do. 

"How many times...? "as the song goes.

Alternative Cure For 'Flesh-Eating' Bacteria
From Gayle Eversole, DHom, PhD, MH, CRNP, ND, Creating Health Institute
4-8-5

A CHALLENGE TO MAINSTREAM MEDICINE TO VENTURE OUTSIDE THE BOX

Reported today by Gene Emery of Reuters, flesh-eating bacteria is once again making headlines.

Emery reports, according to Loren Miller of UCLA Medical Center and Scott Fridkin of the CDC, that skin infections are now found outside hospital and include a new strain of antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.
Emery writes that doctors need to be aware of this and "switch to different antibiotics at the first sign of trouble."

He quotes Fridkin saying that "the alarm does need to be raised to people and clinicians that if you have a staph infection and it's not getting better, you'd better go back to your doctor." Later reports on findings from Miller's team saying that "doctors must shift their attitudes toward cases of necrotizing fasciitis -- the "flesh-eating" part of such a bacterial infection -- and check to see if methicillin-resistant staph is to blame."

Almost a decade ago, when flesh-eating bacteria were beginning to be reported, I called upon my experience as an intensive care nurse and manager of a burn center. I wanted to address this serious health problem from a natural healing perspective because I knew of the decades old problem with antibiotics that were not effectively treating the condition.

Emery's article further defines the problem of antibiotic resistance.

Consulting with a colleague of mine from the herbal traditions of Korea who spent a number of years at Dana Farber Institute at Harvard, I developed a protocol using a combination of his formulas that could be used for this condition. I submitted a package to a Washington State Department of Health researcher with clinical findings on the use of the formulas.

Time has passed quickly, yet at no time did I ever receive a reply, or even a glimmer of thought from this man about the possibility of a trial.

In response to a public health problem, I believed my approach deserved consideration because people were dying.

Subsequently, during the past decade I have responded to numerous media reports of flesh-eating bacteria, asking only for consideration. The closed minds locked in the Newtonian model prevalent in mainstream medicine never once gave consideration to a different way of seeing.

In addition to the herbal protocol I developed a series of fully referenced papers using pure essential oils to attack these bacteria. One of the texts I used as a reference is a medical textbook written by two French physicians. In France physicians are educated in the use of herbs and essential oils as therapeutic modalities.

Essential oils have a very long history and several have very effective anti-bacterial and anti-fungal capacity. Herbs used throughout thousands of years have this same capacity as well.

Seriously hoping to at least have one response, I am saddened to say that not one reply has ever been received.

One would now have to ask the question: What drives these health professionals to so totally disregard non-traditional treatment possibilities?

Today, I am placing my challenge on the table.

Doctors, if you are truly interested in treating and curing this problem, my protocols await.

NB: In early 2006 I was able to connect a research physician at Georgetown Medical School who is doing invetigation 'outside the box'. He advised me that "mainstream medicine is not ready to accept this." Of course, I do understand his comment but I have to wonder about the unwillingness to change and the cost of lives!

Related posts, 2 of about 2 dozen other similar articles in Natural Health News
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2006/08/mrsa.html
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2007/10/it-isnt-stopping-and-you-need-to-get.html
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UPDATE: 11 January 2009 - A new product, Allicin-C, and Alli-Derm, add to your anti-MRSA arsenal. Purchase via our link in the right column.
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More than 10 years ago this issue was repeatedly reported in the press. More than 30 years ago this was an issue discussed often by medical practitioners such as me. Thirty plus years ago doctors used to test anti-biotics in a test called 'C & S' (culture and sensitivity) not utilized too much today.

Mainstream medicine refuses to take my challenge, previously possted on this BLOG. I have added it in below for ease of reference. Maybe now someone might take a chance. Nothing to lose, and maybe save some lives along the way!...

Maybe intravenous high dose vitamin c might be tried. And at least you know this would not hurt you. This treatment saved a client of mine from liver and kidney transplant. Interferon treatments did not work and she developed liver and kidney failure. UW docs were baffled, yet they wouldn't ask...

Wash any suspicious area with pure soap and water and allow to dry thoroughly. Using specific pure essential oils will be very effective in treating and resolving this problem. Above all avoid the use of anti-bacterial soaps. These contain Triclosan and will kill off naturally occurring bacteria on your skin that serves to protect you from infection.

Many non-effective anti-biotics are on the market today and some of these have very serious side effects. Avoid fluoride based products for this reason.

Make sure you ask your doctor what kind of treatment is being prescribed. It is your right to know under the law.

Staph skin infections on rise in U.S.
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Medical Writer

A once-rare drug-resistant germ now appears to cause more than half of all skin infections treated in U.S. emergency rooms, say researchers who documented the superbug's startling spread in the general population.

Many victims mistakenly thought they just had spider bites that wouldn't heal, not drug-resistant staph bacteria. Only a decade ago, these germs were hardly ever seen outside of hospitals and nursing homes.

Doctors also were caught off-guard — most of them unwittingly prescribed medicines that do not work against the bacteria.

"It is time for physicians to realize just how prevalent this is," said Dr. Gregory Moran of Olive View-UCLA Medical Center, who led the study.

Another author, Dr. Rachel Gorwitz of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said: "I think no one was aware of the extent of the problem."

Skin infections can be life-threatening if bacteria get into the bloodstream. Drug-resistant strains can also cause a vicious type of pneumonia and even "flesh-eating" wounds.

The CDC paid for the study, published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. Several authors have consulted for companies that make antibiotics.

Researchers analyzed all skin infections among adults who went to hospital emergency rooms in 11 U.S. cities in August 2004. Of the 422 cases, 249, or 59 percent, were caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. Such bacteria are impervious to the penicillin family of drugs long used for treatment.

The proportion of infections due to MRSA ranged from 15 percent to as high as 74 percent in some hospitals.

"This completely matches what our experience at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital has been," said Dr. Buddy Creech, an infectious-disease specialist whose hospital was not included in the study. "Usually what we see is a mom or dad brings their child in with what they describe as a spider bite that's not getting better or a pimple that's not getting better," and it turns out to be MRSA.

The germ typically thrives in health-care settings where people have open wounds and tubes. But in recent years, outbreaks have occurred among prisoners, children and athletes, with the germ spreading through skin contact or shared items such as towels. Dozens of people in Ohio, Kentucky and Vermont recently got MRSA skin infections from tattoos.

The good news: MRSA infections contracted outside a hospital are easier to treat. The study found that several antibiotics work against them, including some sulfa drugs that have been around for decades. A separate study in the journal reports the effectiveness of Cubicin, an antibiotic recently approved to treat bloodstream infections and heart inflammation caused by MRSA.

However, doctors need to test skin infections to see what germ is causing them, and to treat each one as if it were MRSA until test results prove otherwise, researchers said.

"We have made a fundamental shift in pediatrics in our area" and now assume that every such case is the drug-resistant type, Creech said.

And, doctors need to lance the wound to get rid of bacteria rather than relying on a drug to do the job.

"The most important treatment is actually draining the pus," Gorwitz said. Many times that is a cure all by itself, she said.

The study was done in Albuquerque, N.M.; Atlanta; Charlotte, N.C.; Kansas City, Mo.; Los Angeles; Minneapolis; New Orleans; New York; Philadelphia; Phoenix; and Portland, Ore.