Google Algorithm to Search Out Hospital Superbugs 114
Googling Yourself writes "Researchers in the UK plan to use Google's PageRank algorithm to find how super-bugs like MRSA spread in a hospital setting. Previous studies have discovered how particular objects, like doctors' neckties, can harbor infection, but little is known about the network routes by which bugs spread. Mathematician Simon Shepherd plans to build a matrix describing all interactions between people and objects in a hospital ward, based on observing normal daily activity."
Inaccurate summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
An inaccurate summary on slashdot? I'm shocked!
Re: (Score:1, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
A post complaining about an inaccurate summary on Slashdot? I am astounded sir, astounded!
Re: (Score:1)
I don't even think such a thing is possible on slashdot!
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds like you just described the PageRank TM algorithm in general. Remember, the "Page" in PageRank TM is for the founders name, not web pages. It is not the complexity of the math, but of the ability to solve equations on a large scale quickly over the distributed systems that makes the Google methods so powerful in solving these "simple" math problems.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Sounds like you just described the PageRank TM algorithm in general. Remember, the "Page" in PageRank TM is for the founders name, not web pages. It is not the complexity of the math, but of the ability to solve equations on a large scale quickly over the distributed systems that makes the Google methods so powerful in solving these "simple" math problems.
He described a Markov model, of which PageRank is a variant.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
backwards (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:backwards (Score:5, Interesting)
-- installing or increasing more air-locks/decontamination/containment/quarantine areas
-- improving anti-bacterial ventilation and air cleaning/recirculation equipment
-- setting up scanners points to look for flush/sickly people who emit fumes of certain bug signatures
-- make the doctors and staff ALL wear anti-microbial/bacterial surgical masks EVEN FOR NON-SURGICAL visits (hey, they may be amped on anti-biotics, but aren't they still carriers?)
-- emulate (if not doing so already) practices of the travel/cruise industry which separates various linens according to bacterial or viral risk (using color-coded collection bins) to keep certain bugs out of warm linens while keeping less contaminated items from contact. This reduces staff exposure time to numerous critters
Most of all, given today's mass-travel economy/environment, hospitals and clinics should not be "walk-in-as-you-will" facilities. They should have screening or quarantine areas to separate and manage ENTRY of DETECTABLE vermin/air-borne agents. (Might even spark wild, new hospital designs, create jobs, and give politicians something new to do...)
For any interest in medical and tourism practices in effect, see:
http://www.riph.org.uk/pdf/healthAndHygieneOctober2003.pdf [riph.org.uk]
http://www.bundesbank.de/download/meldewesen/bankenstatistik/kundensystematik/naics_2007_canada.pdf [bundesbank.de]
http://chfs.ky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/4614B679-B2EB-4DD8-A486-C4FFDA7A542D/0/CommunityContainmentSupplement1.doc [ky.gov]
http://www.hhs.gov/pandemicflu/plan/sup8.html [hhs.gov]
Re:backwards (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd just like to point out that "it would create jobs" is no argument at all though. In fact if it didn't create any jobs, it would mean hospitals like these rained from heaven and we would all be better off. The least jobs it creates, the cheaper it is to have, the better it is.
Re: (Score:1)
Additionally, it is much cheaper to not prescribe antibiotics as
Re: (Score:2)
Also, since we're on meds/drugs/pandemics, drug abuse should be managed in more creative ways. See:
Drug debate in Spain (4:00)
http://theworld.org/wma.php?id=01020812 [theworld.org]
Overdose Rescue Kits Save Lives
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17578955 [npr.org]
Global Obesity Series
http://theworld.org/wma.php?id= [theworld.org]
Re: (Score:2)
When a person first presents ill, the diagnosis is not always obvious and some combination of his
Re: (Score:1)
This won't cost much! /sarcasm
--
Kevin
http://velcroman98.googlepages.com/ [googlepages.com]
Hell, part of this could be stemmed by:
-- installing or increasing more air-locks/decontamination/containment/quarantine areas
-- improving anti-bacterial ventilation and air cleaning/recirculation equipment
-- setting up scanners points to look for flush/sickly people who emit fumes of certain bug signatures
-- make the doctors and staff ALL wear anti-microbial/bacterial surgical masks EVEN FOR NON-SURGICAL visits (hey, they may be amped on anti-biotics, but aren't they still carriers?)
-- emulate (if not doing so already) practices of the travel/cruise industry which separates various linens according to bacterial or viral risk (using color-coded collection bins) to keep certain bugs out of warm linens while keeping less contaminated items from contact. This reduces staff exposure time to numerous critters
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
-And people on antibiotics should finish their treatment even if they start feeling better early.
-And antibiotics should not be presribed in situations that they don't help (that happens a lot to get rid of whiney 'customers' quickly).
-And hospitals should spend more money on cleaning staff who know what they are doing.
even simpler (Score:2)
I think doctors should be required to observe each other during training, spot potentially unsafe practices, and give each other feedback.
Furthermore, there should be random checks for the sterility of gloves and instruments.
Re: (Score:2)
-- make the doctors and staff ALL wear anti-microbial/bacterial surgical masks EVEN FOR NON-SURGICAL visits (hey, they may be amped on anti-biotics, but aren't they still carriers?)
They don't work. Even in surgery. All the masks are doing is preventing body fluids from reaching the skin of the surgeon, and giving the surgeon bad breath from rebreathing all his own bugs.
Orthopaedic surgeons who really worry about infection wear the equivalent of a space suit.
-- improving anti-bacterial ventilation and air cleaning/recirculation equipment
We don't tend to get cross-contamination from room to room because of ventilation. There are no documented massive, instantaneous outbreaks of MRSA or VRE through a hospital vent system that I am aware of (except in bioweapon
You can't eradicate skin flora (Score:4, Interesting)
If only it were as simple as you say!
Staphylococcus aureus lives on normal skin. You're probably crawling with billions of these little buggers. Such is life. Most of the time, methicillin-sensitive Staph outgrows the methicillin-resistant Staph (in theory, there is a difference in rate of replication, since MRSA has that extra cassette that it needs to copy)
But in certain places in the U.S., community-acquired MRSA infections make up as many as 35% of all infections (from simple skin infections to bacterial sepsis), at which point isolation practices are pretty pointless, particularly since they've never been proven to actually decrease rate of transmission. (Although granted, if you die from MRSA, it's going to be hospital-acquired MRSA that gets you.)
Other multi-drug resistant bacteria are prevalent in the environment--in the soil, on flat surfaces, in computer keyboards--and don't cause illness in immunocompetent people. Examples are Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acinetobacter baumanii, Enterobacter cloacae, Stenotrophomonas maltophila, and Alcaligenes xylosoxidans. But Gram-negative rods, more so than Gram-positive cocci, are likely to kill you in less than 24 hours. (Necrotizing fasciitis--caused by so-called "flesh-eating bacteria"--is more likely caused by Group A Streptococcus, which is very sensitive to straight-up penicillin, and MSSA)
MRSA and other multi-drug resistant bacteria are simply not transmitted by air. Respiratory isolation rooms (negative pressure rooms with separate air filters) are good for preventing the spread of pulmonary tuberculosis, and various non-fatal viral illnesses, but that's about it. And when you've got 30-40 kids with RSV, there's no way you're going to isolate all of them.
Most vectors of these bacteria are not sick from them, and they're so prevalent that it's not practical to exclude people who are colonized with this stuff. Most health-care workers are definitely colonized, for example, and it's no good preventing these people from working. Making people who have upper respiratory symptoms wear masks may be helpful, but making everyone do so? Studies don't show any difference in transmission.
Any linens that might have been contaminated are destroyed anyway.
The measures that have been proven to decrease transmission of bacteria and viruses are (1) thorough hand washing, meaning lathering up and running your hands under water for at least 15 seconds or (2) using the alcohol-based anti-bacterial gels (although this won't destroy Clostridium difficile spores) Everything else (masks, gowns, gloves), in terms of preventing transmission of these bacteria, is, according to the studies, infection control theater. (I'm not talking about universal precautions here, which definitely keep health care workers from getting HIV and hepatitis.)
And when you come in on a backboard with C-collar because you were in a car-crash, infection control sort of takes a back seat until they take care of your airway, breathing, and circulation. There's no way you're going to keep someone dying from trauma in a quarantined area until you make sure they're not colonized with any of this stuff.
Bottom line: wash you hands, and stop asking your physician for antibiotics whenever you or your kid have the sniffles. That'll cut the incidence of MRSA and other multi-drug resistant bacteria.
Mod parent up and grandparent down (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Making an effective air lock is not a trivial matter (and ineffective one is easy), and not really necessary if you're in the hospital because of a non-infectious disease related matter. Already, patients that have easily communicable diseases such as tuberculosis are kept in negative pressure rooms with air locks and patients with depressed immune systems are kept in positive
Re: (Score:2)
I'll give a good example. My local hospital had an outbreak of Legionnaire's Disease. They had a hell of a time tracking it down. The infection was transmitted by water, so all drinking fountains, faucets, and showers were shut down in the entire wing where the first patients had been infected. Patients were moved to other wings, those faciliti
Re: (Score:2)
Anyway, about clogged shower heads... when we see orange-ish goop on a showerhead (say we visit a friend and use the shower), should be be worried? If not *real* worried, then *how* much worry?
Re: (Score:2)
I wouldn't worry about your friend's clogged shower head, unless he recently died of Legionnaire's Disease.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
This is really simple stuff, it would have a massive effect on infection rates, but nobody will do i
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Even at WORK I use the drying paper towel to manipulate the door handle.
I realize that if we OVERinsulate ourselves, we will be more vulnerable due to less immunity,
Sounds like you are OVERinsulating yourself... In a normal environment, where there aren't any unusual, contagious pathogens floating around, you don't need to and you should not go to extremes like that. You are putting yourself at risk by not giving your immune system normal level of "exercise", and also probably increase your a risk of getting allergies (if your immune system doesn't have real threats, it'll invent them...).
Now if there is something like a flu epidemic, or if you're in hospital, t
Re: (Score:1)
Google's page rank [...] it wasn't the first time that it was applied to that either.
Really? If so, the Pagerank patent [uspto.gov] would have been challenged. I think Pagerank is closer to calculating the steady state of energy flow through a circuit, than to Markov chains.
But maybe you are right - cites or it didn't happen.
Re: (Score:2)
Really.
http://www.google.com/search?q=pagerank+markov-chain [google.com]
If so, the Pagerank patent would have been challenged.
Why would anybody bother? Google hasn't sued anybody, and pure page rank doesn't work all that well anyway.
Re: (Score:1)
I think someone would have challenged the patent, at least academically or informally (eg in a magazine or even a blog), if it "wasn't the first time".
BTW: I see what you mean: it's the random surfer that follows a markov process (pagerank calculates a probability distribution over it).
maybe not, but other connections are known (Score:4, Insightful)
There's also a view that having (letting?) staff wear their uniforms outside the hospital both brings in bugs from outside the hospital and lets them out into the real world.
There are some absolutely basic things that the NHS could do, but for some inexplicable (cost related?) reasons won't do. It doesn't need high-tech investigations and it's not rocket science - just basic hygene sense.
Re:maybe not, but other connections are known (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I worked in a hospital and the issue of superbugs was a prominent one. The plain fact of the matter is that superbugs are not a large danger outside of a hospital. They rarely infect healthy individuals precisely because they are healthy, instead they infect those whose immune systems are already compromised and those people are disproportionately found in hospitals and other clinical settings. Allowing staff
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting. When I (an IT person) go into the OR suites to work on a computer problem, I either have to put on the Tyvek "bunny suit" over my street clothes (which can get very warm very quickly) or I have to change out of my street clothes and put on scrubs just like the docs. By changing into scrubs (o
Yes, Math Works (Score:2)
"Google's" "PageRank algorithm" is actually an implementation of a very powerful, general mathematical principle. Math applies to more than just the web.
Re:Yes, Math Works (Score:5, Funny)
NOT necessarily true (Score:2)
Yes infections can occur that way, but the 2 infections my partner had last year were probably from that mechanism. One patient was a public servant who came into contact with many people
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You get Ancef (cefazolin) intravenously. The idea is that you might end up with bacteria in your bloodstream from your skin after they cut on you. Unfortunately, Ancef will kill all the Streptococcus and methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus on your skin and will let MRSA take over.
In terms of topical agents, surgeons routinely use Betadine (povidone iodine) and Hibiclens (chlorhexidine). These can completely eradicate bacteria on your skin and physicians sometimes recommend patients colonized with
Re: (Score:2)
Medically speaking you are correct. But personal injury lawyers are working overtime to change the cost effectivness as we speak. I worked for a company that did a study like the one in the OP. Bottom line was that hospital personnel are all over the building, and actual superbug infections are rare enough that no meaningful trends could be detected.
no ties! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:no ties! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Sew it up in one of them? It'll take 'em months to find it unless you have it set to vibrate!
Cheers
Re: (Score:2)
I'm glad that they're not basing this on (Score:2)
We're breeding them every day (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
How antibacterials work - It is NOT just soap (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not a chemist or a doctor. And I assume that if this is mistaken in any way, someone will correct me, since this is
For household use you don't need antibacterial agents to effectively wash your hands - because the act of actual abrasion with the surface-tension eliminating properties of soap removes most things from your skin. For the most part, your hands don't harbor a lot of problems IN the surface, because your body is busy killing that.
In my opinion, there are also two major classes of these antibacterial agents - which I'll classify as "simple" and "complex" To my knowledge, it's extremely difficult and rare for bacteria to become resist to "simple" antibacterial agents.
Simple antibacterial agents are things that kill everything. Like bleach (e.g. Chlorox), or high concentrations of alcohol (e.g. Glass Plus). To a lesser extent vinegar, ammonia, salt... These things are not necessarily good for people, but people are really big and can avoid drinking them in really high doses... but they're still really bad for bacteria etc to swim completely in and they get annihilated, because these things basically just melt cell walls.
For the most part these are quite safe to clean with... they don't especially build up in your system, so as long as you never get a super high dose, usually by breathing or drinking it, you're safe. But I don't recommend you swim in bleach, get it in your eyes, and drink it either. Those example cleaners are relatively harmless in most controlled cleaning situations - but there are plenty of options in this category that aren't - like strong acids - we just don't usually put them in consumer cleaners in high doses.
So I have no objection to, say, a little bleach being added to surface cleaners.
The antibiotics you take orally are wildly different, and must be complex. They can't be TOO bad for you, or they'd be rat poison and not a drug. So they try to attack something bacteria-cell specific that human cells are immune to. But bacteria operate in a range of ways, so often this only works on some bacteria. And they mutate... so the more specific and narrow the antibiotic is, the easier it is for the bacteria to become immune. The broader it is, the more likely it hurts you.
Some companies - because it's what the uneducated consuming public wants - are putting vaguely these kind of agents in household cleaning products. Not EXACTLY the same drugs we're taking orally. But chemicals that have narrow, complex effects on bacteria, which probably encourage mutation. Those mutations may or may not impact the effectiveness of current or future drugs.
HOWEVER, as much as I think antibacterial hand soap is pretty high on the list of evils, it's not NEARLY as bad as the number of people who merely don't finish the antibiotics they were prescribed. Those people are ruining the world.
Triclosan (Score:4, Informative)
Development of antibiotic resistance has to do with 3 factors:
1. Overprescription of antibiotics - i.e. giving Abx to someone who has a cold. Whether it's self-medication, or done by an MD is irrelevant in this case.
2. Improper prescription of antibiotics - i.e. not everything in the world can be cured with a 5-day course of Azithromycin (Zithromax). Too many doctors just hand it out like candy. We should really rely on testing for bug susceptibility in many more cases than we do now.
3. Improper use of antibiotics - i.e. not finishing the course. This is an old problem, that seems to have no solution, especially when it comes to the "internet-know-it-all" patients... who think that 5 minutes of googling qualifies them to self-medicate at will.
Re: (Score:2)
If everyone only knew how much that last comment rings true...
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, who knows what havoc the cattle industry is causing by feeding their animals antibiotics.
The active ingredient of antibacterial soap (as others have mentioned) is triclosan, and it works more like something "complex," as you put it, as it inhibits a particular enzymatic process necessary for bacterial replication. However, many common pathogens (E. coli, Staph aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa) can develop resistance to this.
Luckily, there are no antibiotics that cross-react with triclosan, and it's
Re: (Score:2)
A few replies mention triclosan, but since it's not used orally in humans, or really used specifically at all, it's not really of any concern.
One that is of concern is Canesten Hygiene Laundry Rinse (http://www.canesten.com/products_en/canesten_waeschespueler_en.html).
Antifungal agents (topical and oral) are very important in treating specific human fungal diseases. Releasing this product on unsuspecting consumers is a very bad move. This product will easily select for resistant strains,
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You don't but MY BABIES could get an INFECTION!
Adwords (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The Wikipedia page will probably be no more than a few paragraphs. There will be at least 3 flagging boxes (declaring it to be a stub, not citing sources, containing trivia and that trivia is Verboten and punishable by death!) There will be at least one link to an article about a band you've never heard of who once
Ayn Rand (Score:2, Funny)
and even if all of that were true and (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I realize you were joking, but it probably would have been funnier if the tuberculosis page didn't yet exist, o
You never had MRSA... (Score:1)
But does America CARE yet? It should. (Score:5, Interesting)
In 2005, Britain's going nucking futs over MRSA. It was used as a reason to justify taking the NHS (National Health Service. Translation: universal healthcare) and molding it into whatever each Party wanted the world to be like. You couldn't pick up a newspaper without SuperBug this or SuperBug that on the front page.
Meanwhile, in America, the sound of crickets gently chirp. Chreeeep, chreeeep, chreeeep. Nobody gave a tinker's cuss about MRSA. At all.
OK. That's the scene. People in Britain thinking that MRSA is going to turn the country into 28 Days Later. America thinks MRSA is some rapper's name.
And then the official numbers came out for MRSA deaths for that year.
England/Wales, in 2005: 1629 deaths [statistics.gov.uk].
United States, in 2005: 18,650 deaths [medicinenet.com].
There are more people in the States than England and Wales. So I looked up the numbers for the land of the free and the home of the Whopper [census.gov] and Pommie/Limey/Rosbif-TaffyLandSheepCountry [statistics.gov.uk].
US population at the time - 295 million.
Eng-Cym population in the last census (and it won't have doubled from 2001-2005) - 52 million.
So what were the chances this would have killed YOU? Well, remote (if you're reading this now), but what about back then? The equation is:
[population of the country in 2005] / [deaths from MRSA there in 2005]
= [chance of being killed by MRSA in 2005].
The chances you had of MRSA killing you in England and Wales, with everyone going mental over it, in 2005 - 1 in 32,000.
Chances of dying the same death in a country with market-driven health system, where people are NOT specifically looking for MRSA - 1 in 15,800.
I'll let those numbers sink in. British readers might want to look at them again and make sure up is still up.
And now I'm going to pretend to be really stupid here: I could be spectacularly wrong, but it LOOKS like the numbers prove a person was twice more likely to kick the bucket from MRSA in the States than in Blighty (OK, England and Wales. I'll let someone else add Scotland and Northern Ireland to the mix). America, with its pay-as-you-go health system making monster profits, not as good as a system some people would tell you is on its last legs.
What was even funnier (maybe 'funnier' isn't quite the right word) was the excuse used in the UK National Statistics Office for why their number was so HIGH:
This is either the longest and most researched Flaimbait ever to appear on SlashDot, or I just blew. Your. Freaking. Mind.
Unless you're American: in which case, just think of this like the slang you don't understand in Doctor Who, words like 'chav' and 'ASBO'.
Re: (Score:2)
Unless you're American: in which case, just think of this like the slang you don't understand in Doctor Who, words like 'chav' and 'ASBO'.
I watch a lot of Top Gear, and being American, I had no idea what a sleeping policeman was. Once I looked that up, I thought it was brilliant. I now respect your funny sounding words much more and am trying to adopt them into my everyday speech. I think coopay (coupe) is my favorite. Though I don't know what chav means and I think ASBO was that walking Japanese robot that fell over.
Sleeping policeman == speed bump
Oh yeah, very interesting rant and investigation there.
Re: (Score:2)
Just Google chav and ASBO. There's a counter-culture around the words
And to offer the hand of solidarity, I'm a big fan of Scrubs myself.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Chances of dying the same death in a country with market-driven health system, where people are NOT specifically looking for MRSA - 1 in 15,800.
You know, every drug approved in the US is FDA regulated, every medical school is government certified, every person pays taxes into Medicare, and most people get health care through insurance, which is virtually government run... The only "market-
Re: (Score:2)
I just googled it for an American source, because this isn't what left and right wing newspapers in Britain report. Only people with jobs pay into Medicare, and it's only used by the elderly and disabled (so get hit by a car, or wait a few decades). And according to this page [hiaa.org], two-thirds of the US (200 million) is covered by 1,300 private companies that "ensure Americans' financial secu
Re: (Score:1)
The concept of 'diagnosis effect' (you report more of what is currently the 'hot disease') is actually well established, and can often be demonstrated in epidemiological contexts. Look at mentions of asbestosis on death certificats compared to the medical models' forecasts and compared to the progress of the surrounding litigation, if you would lik
friends don't let friends (Score:1, Flamebait)
yer a little high strung there kiddo
Re: (Score:2)
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus [wikipedia.org]
(from the wash-your-damn-hands dept.)
This is either the longest and most researched Flaimbait ever to appear on SlashDot, or I just blew. Your. Freaking. Mind.
Not particularily mind blowing, but interesting nonetheless. For the record, this yank *does* care, but he knows that there's little he can do until he's diagnosed with it (if ever). It is alarming that there's not more awa
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The U.S. has been dealing with MRSA since the 1970's (back when methicillin was actually in use.) Health care workers have been aware of it for quite some time now, although, truthfully, we are in an epidemic.
I wonder if your numbers are illustrative of the difference between nationalized health care and the chaos that masquerades as a functional health care system here in the States.
I also wonder if physicians who work in a nationalized health care system are more likely to abide by infectious disease
Re: (Score:2)
Our full national formulary of antibiotics contains much of the same as the US national formulary, but each Healthcare Trust (PCT) limits its own formulary (available licensed drugs) to a small subset of the full national formulary. These decisions are again made by microbiologists and economists to regulate costs
Re: (Score:2)
So your argument is that a health program under which less people die of MRSA is therefore de facto more effective? OK, under my new health initiative, we put a bullet through the head of everyone over 40. I've just cured Alzheimers, most cancers, and a host of other diseases, while your country is still plagued by them.
Your argument is sloppy and does a disservice to anyone who actually wants to nationalize health care in the US.
Re: (Score:1)
Not all materials are created equal (Score:2)
wooden cutting boards are awesome (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
I See (Score:2)
Needed: Thinking Outside The Box (Score:1)
Instead, we should develop and breed innocuous (not harmful to humans) forms of bacteria that feed off the same food sources as does MRSA and inject these into the hospital environment . These innocuous bacteria would be designed to out-compete MRSA, reducing the risk of letha
Is MRSA a superbug? (Score:2)
VRSA, on the other hand, is pretty much a death sentence at this stage of the game... That's the one I always thought of as a superbug.
(Information from new-employee training at Naples Community Hospital, Circa July 2003)
Re: (Score:2)
Luckily, there have only been a couple of cases of VRSA, although we're seeing a lot more VISA (vancomycin intermediate Staph aureus) Unfortunately, we tend to use vancomycin like candy (hence the nickname, vitamin V, not to be confused with Valium or Viagra.) The standard broad-spectrum cocktail that we use at the hospitals I work at is nicknamed Vosyn, for vancomycin and Zosyn (piperacillin/tazobactam)
We seem to be doing OK in terms of Gram positive cocci. MRSA is killable with vancomycin and VRE (vanco
Scrubs (Score:1)
Lucky? (Score:1)
Pens (Score:2)
That reminds me... (Score:2)
Early results... (Score:1)
Dirty habits and hospitals are the cause (Score:2)
Talk to the people in the medical business - they all know what the causes are:
1. Dirty people with dirty habits, leading to
2. Contaminated interactions, leading to
3. Dirty facilities, where you can catch almost anything.
The only reason MRSA, (or other nasties like 'difficile') get the news is that the usual solution for sloppy practise - an assload of antibiotics - does not work. Mainly due - again - to sloppy practise (over-prescription).
But ap
Re: (Score:2)
Well, yes and no. Certainly bad hygiene will put you at a disadvantage, but you could shower three times a day and still be colonized with community-acquired MRSA.
Antibiotic overuse also plays into this, but is it really overuse when the patient is septic and dying? What this is is an example of artificial selection. Antibiotics are a huge selective pressure, and the development of resistance is inevitable.
Granted, universal precautions, sterile technique, and simple handwashing cut the risk of infectio
Re: (Score:1)
Did these bugs also kill dinosaurs? Desktop Linux? (Score:2)
But will it have (Score:1)