MRSA Notes

Canada’s C-Health
is reporting news from the Canadian Medical Association Journal on the spread of CA-MRSA in Canada:
The drug-resistant forms of the bug that are spreading in the community - strains labelled USA300 and USA400 - generally cause hard-to-treat skin and soft-tissue infections, weeping wounds that will not heal. But they can also occasionally cause severe […]

Picture a nurse, with a spider bite on her belly. As is usually the case when we hear “the spider bite story,” it turned out not to be a spider bite after all. For the last week, said anonymous nurse has been journaling her experiences discovering that her bite was a Staph infection, […]

Podiatry Today magazine is bringing attention to the special situation of infection in the feet of people with diabetes. Diabetes not only is an immunosuppressant disease (lowers the function of the immune system), but it also decreases circulation in those affected. Because of these two things, and the fact that your feet are […]

Ceragenix Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on infectious disease and dermatology, announced that it has entered into a research and development agreement with an internationally recognized research laboratory to develop formulations, in the form of nasal ointments, designed to prevent influenza infection and to decolonize the nasal passage of methicillin-resistant staph aureus (MRSA). The […]

My dear hubby, Marshall Jones is going to be interviewed about his MRSA infection on Nitebeat on CN8 in Boston tonight at 7pm Eastern time. If you would like to listen to the interview, the show will be streamed on the web simultaneously at ne.cn8.tv, just click the CN8 Live link on the left […]

Brandon, a 2 yr old boy is discovered to have a CA-MRSA infection after a fall. From the Missouri News Tribune:
On May 4, two-year-old Brandon Stafford of Jefferson City was happily bouncing up and down on a trampoline while visiting his father in Memphis, Tenn., when he landed on his leg. While it didn’t […]

WOAI in San Antonio would like the public to be aware that all Texas Medical Centers are seeing increased rates of Staphylococcal Infections, including the antibiotic-resistant MRSA. Remember that these infections are often confused with spider bites and and will manifest themselves as a large abscess with a dark wound in the center. […]

This is a very useful article from STLtoday about the proper care of common summertime wounds and injuries:

Wound infections most often happen when bacteria, especially staphylococcus (staph) or streptococcus (strep), invade the body through a break in the skin. Sometimes infections start with a closed rash and become infected because a child scratches or picks […]

Some new research presented by ScientistLive regarding fish slime and Staph bacteria:
Researchers in Norway have discovered that a protein in the slime covering the flatfish plaice contains a substance that kills the bacteria staphylococcus.
Chemical engineer Trude Tvete has found a bacteria-killing protein in plaice slime, isolated the protein from the slime and tested it on […]

London scientists report that 53 million people in the world are carriers of MRSA, carrying the bacteria in colonies on their skin and in their mucus membranes. They also estimate that 25-30% of the worlds population carry some form of the Staphylococcus (staph, staff) bacteria.
Even in countries like the Netherlands, Sweden and […]

The MMWR report from the CDC this week includes a study of 44 tattoo related incidences of MRSA occurring in 3 states (Kentucky, Vermont, and Ohio) and and connected to 13 different unlicensed tattoo artists. The MRSA patients ranged in age from 15 to 42 and were 65% male and the cases were collected […]

From Westerly, RI, The Westerly Sun:

A bacterial disease once found in gravely ill patients in large urban hospitals is now commonly detected in otherwise healthy adults and children locally, according to Westerly Health Coordinator Dr. Tobias M. Goodman.
Staphylococcus aureus, long recognized as a virulent pathogen, has now become antibiotic resistant and is commonly found in […]

From the Fashion Monitor Toronto:
E. Pierce Marshall died of “brief and extremely aggressive infection” at the age of 67, according to a statement released by family spokesperson David Margulies
E. Pierce Marshall is the son of Anna Nicole Smith’s deceased husband and the man who has been fighting Anna Nicole in court for the family fortune […]

Venous catheters have long been a very common source of hospital acquired infections. There is a new training intervention that is spreading through hospitals to update the staff in a concise and quick way on the most current preventative research and practical information via quick brochures and training materials that can be viewed and […]

I am the first to admit, I am jaded. My experience has almost exclusively been of meeting people that were incorrectly diagnosed with spider bites that actually had Staphylococcal skin infections. This is why I was a little bit surprised to see this blurb in an article about the Brown Recluse spider about […]

IKEY, Ltd. has manufactured wireless keyboards for use in medical settings. These keyboards have been through extensive testing involving MRSA and will hold up to repeated disinfection. Here is some information about the recommended disinfection procedures from IKEY:

• Soap and water is not sufficient to remove bacteria.
• This iKey product has […]

You will find that I just dearly love my friend Shadrach - yes, he is a dog, but certainly one of the brightest dogs around. He and his Mom, Kim Bloomer, are very educated on natural healing and have offered up this blend of essential oils as a topical natural alternative for antibiotics:
Natural antibiotic […]

My friends Francine Jackson and Theresa Drew have been working so very hard this year on awareness of MRSA in athletics and are now promoting their First Annual Ricky’s MRSA Awareness Walk and Benefit:
July 2, 2006 from 2-4 pm
Keenan’s Irish Pub
New Jersey and Spruce Streets
North Wildwood, NJ
The cost is $15 for the walk only, […]

Five employees of a New Jersey correctional facility have brought a lawsuit against the administrators of the jail. From NJ.com:
Kent R. Collins, Jerry C. Cora, Thomas J. Duffy, Agostino J. Fare and Beth Lindsay alleged in their lawsuit that the jail’s administration failed to warn them of “possible exposure” to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or […]

Just like I would (and often do) advise no one to get elective surgery right now, I would say also that this is absolutely not the time to be getting tattoos either. And this is spoken from a tattoo loving gal who sports two of them herself. I have talked to a […]

I have been a bad girl today - I have been online most of the day and just shooting the breeze chatting up a storm and basically doing absolutely nothing productive. I didn’t want to let this get too far away though. This is my puppy, Pebbles:

What does my 70 pound 7 month […]

Speaking of enterotoxins:
Thumann’s, a N.J. firm, is recalling approximately 664 pounds of boneless prosciutto ham that may contain Staphylococcus aureus enterotoxin, which may induce nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal cramping, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service.
Each label bears the establishment number ”507” inside the Canadian seal of inspection and […]

On our forums at MRSA Resources we had a question - What does Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS) have to do with Staph?
My best answer was that TSS is the name of what happens to your body when it is poisoned by Staphylococcus aureus bacteria - which is essentially correct, but I thought we needed some […]

I was chatting with Hsien yesterday about this, and told her that I have spoken of “Dr.” Chris Malyszewicz enough over the last year in discussion of the Bad Science series from The Guardian, that I didn’t feel the need to mention him yet again - but this story about “what you get when you […]

If you are the scientist type and love to read about double blind studies, you can read this study from the British Medical Journal - Effectiveness of discontinuing antibiotic treatment after three days versus eight days in mild to moderate-severe community acquired pneumonia: randomised, double blind study. What they did, and what scares me, […]

Apparently this warning was sent out recently (where, I cannot discern):
“Swimmers beware. As a nurse on the Coast, it has come to my attention there have been several incidents where swimmers in the local rivers have been coming in with staph infections. This is very dangerous due to the lack of rain. There are many […]

According to the book, Organic Housekeeping : In Which the Non-Toxic Avenger Shows You How to Improve Your Health and That of Your Family, While You Save Time, Money, and, Perhaps, Your Sanity, you should toss your reusable kitchen sponges in favor of a dishcloth that you replace every day (at least) with a fresh […]

For a good while now, honey from the New Zealand Manuka bush has been reputed to have very good antibacterial effects, especially in regards to MRSA. Why would you want to use honey? The real reason is that using honey as opposed to a manufactured antibacterial treatment will hopefully not contribute to the […]

This is my best effort for the b5media’s Science and Health Channels June theme day, featuring “The Sun.” There just isn’t much to say to connect MRSA and the sun - and I really am not the most creative gal on the planet to be quite honest. I could talk about the sun […]

Here is something you might not think of - CA-MRSA getting into your body through a blister from a new athletic shoe. I am not sure I would have thought of that one really. Wear good, clean socks and break in new shoes slowly, especially athletic shoes. Use athletic tape or moleskin […]

Um….let me just say, if anyone reading this belongs to this gym - run, don’t walk, away. This is scary, dangerous and negligent, and for them to say these things to a newspaper is really unbelievable to me. The gist is that this particular gym, despite going through a huge and expensive overhaul […]