MRSA Notes

From WALB.com:

Ole Mexican Foods of Norcross is recalling cheese because it tested positive for bacteria. The Ole brand and Verole brand of cheese are sold under the label Fresco Authentic Mexican crumbling cheese.
The cheese is sold in round plastic vacuum packages with a white label and “sell by” dates of 09-20-06 and 09-21-06. Twelve ounce, [...]

As I reported last week, Pennsylvania is at the forefront of MRSA awareness, and this week is no exception. The Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4) has been gathering statistics about MRSA in its hospitals with the intention of improving the quality of health care and reducing the associated costs in its state. You [...]

The Minnesota Vikings are the first NFL team to take advantage of new technologies in infection prevention and are using the products offered by Sport Coatings to protect their turf and their players. They join several college teams - hopefully this will become a trend!

“Health and safety is always a priority,” said Head [...]

15 football players have acquired impetigo, a rash caused by Staphylococcal bacteria - thankfully it is not the antibiotic resistant bacteria (MRSA), but the high school is taking the opportunity to thoroughly santize its athletic areas.
About impetigo:

Impetigo mainly affects infants and children, usually when bacteria enter the skin through cuts or insect bites. But [...]

Duke University has released its study of the efficacy of Daptomycin (brand name Cubicin), a drug recently approved by the FDA for marketing to patients. This is the newest drug in the fight against MRSA.

The results showed daptomycin was as effective as standard therapy, Fowler said. Daptomycin was more successful at eliminating drug-resistant [...]

Now it is making the mainstream media. Yesterday, the New York Times published this article touching on MRSA and the growing problem of antibiotic resistance:
Evolutionary overachievers, the bacteria “reproduce every 20 minutes, and each time there’s an opportunity for mutation, to select out for resistance,” said Dr. C. Glenn Mayhall, a specialist in infectious [...]

TheBostonChannel is looking for people who have been battling MRSA in their families for an interview for an upcoming story - email rhondamann@hearst.com if you would like to be included.
Boston, Massachusetts, MRSAShare This

The Federal Prison Camp in Duluth, Minnesota is working to disinfect the prisoner’s exercise areas as they have had 18 cases of MRSA over the summer months.
Morrison said the Minnesota Department of Health was notified as a precaution. He said he believes “this situation remains under control.”
With all of the recent talk about [...]

This semi-icky sounding story, Agency Approves First Use of Viruses as a Food Additive, from the New York Times, may not have anything directly to do with MRSA, but it has everything to do with bacteriophages, something which has been touted as the cure to antibiotic resistant bacteria. The gist of the story, which [...]

MRSA used to be spread a lot in locker rooms, especially among football players and wrestling teams. Now, Myers said babies are getting through a diaper rash and other family members are spreading it just by casual touch.

Kudos to NBC San Diego
for helping make your community aware of MRSA, but watch out for your [...]

Once again, Pennsylvania is at the forefront of MRSA awareness - and this time they have a plan of action! The VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System met at the end of last week and made plans to share infection prevention information with 17 other VA hospitals in the region and eventually with VA hospitals [...]

MRSA hits ABC News with an article based on the study we talked about the other day and released yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine that shows how much more common MRSA is now than it was even 6 years ago. The article is fairly general,
and I would sure like to see [...]

School started today here in College Station, TX, where we live. Our school system has been so good about making parents of their students aware of MRSA by including literature about it in their beginning of the year info packets - so good that I knew what MRSA was when Marshall got it ( [...]

The Washington Post today has an article referring a study done in 2004 and presented to the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine regarding emergency room visits for skin and soft tissue infections (SSTI’s):

Among people with SSTIs serious enough to warrant an ER visit:
· 60 percent had the MRSA strain of bacteria.
· At eight of the [...]

Late last week, Indiana’s Lake County Jail went into quarantine due to an outbreak of MRSA skin infections among its prisoners:

She [Warden Caren Jones] said a number of diseased inmates are being kept together in isolation, and inmates who would normally be transferred to less restrictive housing, such as the work-release center, will be held [...]

This news item from South Carolina is about Dave Bennett and his recent experience with MRSA Necrotizing Fascitis in a surgical wound:

The 39-year-old had been passing out before arriving at The Regional Medical Center, where it was confirmed that he was bleeding internally and needed an operation. He seemed to be doing fine the first [...]

My buddy Tris was watching out for me while I was on vacation and didn’t want us to miss this article from Mike the Mad Biologist about antibiotic resistance and its correlation with various factors (ethnicity, health history and others) taken from a study in Emerging Infectious Diseases. The most important thing to [...]

Ryan Dowling’s father sent me their son’s story a couple of days ago - Ryan suffered a life threatening MRSA infection, yet another victim of MRSA in an athletic setting.
Ryan’s father says he is still battling the effects of MRSA, and may possibly need a hip replacement - please keep Ryan in your [...]

I just wanted to craft a quick apology for my absence this week, I took a big road trip to my hometown in Tennessee last week, and had every intention of keeping up my blogging this week, but an exhausting weekend and 2 long days on the road back home took its toll and I [...]

I wrote the Pediatrics guide at About.com a year or so ago to ask him to work on the MRSA resources at his site, and I believe he has. Do check it out and explore all of the information and links at his great site!
MRSA Infections in Children at About.com
MRSA in ChildrenShare This

Keep in mind that this concise but pretty thorough and easy to understand article, Basic Instinct: Immunity, is being offered to health supplement retailers as an educational tool, but you too can learn a whole lot about different vitamins and mineral supplements here that will help boost your immune system.
Also please note, these [...]

If you follow anything else I write on the internet, you will probably have run across my mission of informing people about the dangers of whirlpool baths. Not only is this a concern with salon pedicures, but it is a concern in whirlpool bathtubs as well - most especially those located in hotels and [...]