MRSA Notes

Chitin, found in shells of crustaceans, contains Chitosan, which is currently being tested as an infection preventative in implanted medical devices. The substance, harmless to humans and currently used in a variety of different applications, has shown to cause injury to bacteria that choose to attempt to attach to it, resulting in a much lowered [...]

Physicians at Houston’s Texas Children’s Hospital have discovered an association between community acquired MRSA and two muscular infections that are common in tropical countries and becoming more frequently found here: Pyomyositis is an acute bacterial infection of skeletal muscle that produces an abscess within the muscle. Myositis is also a muscle infection, but does not [...]

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 [...]

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 S. [...]

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 [...]

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 get from [...]

A new, rapid test for Staphylococcal infection and colonization for mothers in labor has now become available from Cepheid. Staph is the number one cause of early onset infection in newborns, and prior to this, mothers were tested before childbirth, but the tests had to be sent to the lab with a turn around time [...]

Admittedly, this is a little beyond my understanding, but there is lots of research being done now on Staphylococcal enterotoxins, and this is a short article about one of them: While scientists understand how many other invaders activate T cells to mount an immune response – through a cascade of biochemical signals that begin with [...]

Nina Planck has written a book exposing the dangers of “industrial” foods and the benefits of natural, whole foods. I truly believe that keeping your body in tip-top shape is very important so that your immune system is prepared to tackle whatever challenges come your way. Please let me know if you have read this [...]

There was a study done in Ireland recently on the bacteria lurking in our refrigerators with some interesting results. Valerie Jackson, who holds a PhD in Microbiology and is a surveillance scientist with the Health Protection Surveillance Centre in Dublin discovered that our fridges are an important source of disease causing organisms. Dr. Jackson spoke [...]