Why Aren't The Feds Fighting MRSA Harder?

(CBS)  Not so long ago Kerri Cardello was a vibrant, 24/7 soccer mom.

Cardello now is struggling with the after effects of MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant staph infection she believes she got in the hospital.

MRSA damaged both of her lungs - and took both of her legs below the knees.

Cardello believes had she been tested for MRSA in the hospital, she would at least been treated sooner, CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews reports.

"If they had screening of MRSA," she said. "Maybe I wouldn't have lost my legs."

The test for MRSA, a $20 swab of the nose, is done routinely at a handful of U.S. hospitals, all of which call the testing effective. At Loyola University in Chicago, testing has reduced MRSA infections by 50 percent.

"We think it's worthwhile because it's putting our patients first," said Loyola University's Dr. Paul O'Keefe.

Three states and the Veterans Administration have also ordered MRSA screenings for high risk patients - but the federal government, specifically the Centers for Disease Control, has not.

The CDC, which declined an on camera interview, but told CBS News by phone that drug-resistant infections in hospitals have to be fought with multiple strategies.

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CDC Head: Staph Is "The Cockroach Of Bacteria"

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Such strategies include better hospital hand hygiene enhanced cleaning, along with testing. Testing alone, the CDC believes is "not a magic bullet,"

"And that is just the wrong mindset," said Lisa McGiffert of the Consumers Union.

Advocates at the Consumers Union say the CDC is discounting mounting evidence that aggressive hospital testing could stop MRSA at the front gate.

"If hospitals would do this kind of screening, they could significantly cut down on the spread of MRSA within their walls," McGiffert said. "This has been proven over and over."

"The science is there!" Cardello told Andrews. "It's been done. It's been done in other countries. It's been done!"

The CDC estimates at least 19,000 Americans died last year because of MRSA, but 94,000 get sick - most of them stricken in the hospital, stricken by a preventable disease.

[likeabllunch]

'' ... i met god, she speaks to me by meddling in the lives of others, and then tells me that there is infinite divergence and that i am as much a god as is she, and that neither of us has any real power over each other or anyone else and vice versa ... if i''m hurt against my will, she says, then it is not truly against my will: there is inadequacy / uncertainty / etc in my heart, i''m having a bad dream, she says ... ''

[likeabllunch]

'' ... there was first aid on the trail, followed by inkblot sport and puzzle, followed by sell art basketball, followed by the evolved book rental shop: the yseedsberry, created to replace book rental with local information exchange, computerized bulletin boards gave way to the internet which made finding local solutions to local problems and local answers to local questions difficult, a community center dedicated to local people shopping for local bargains or jobs or homework help made a tolerable idea for a replacement ... enter ''rally round the sick beds'': and now the 300 county shopping malls are a collection of homes where the sick beds converge and the vendors around the sick beds cutting and pasting their blooms and other inventorys before hiking / bussing on to the next shopping mall / village ... ''

'' ... the few and proud run scream and citate and the job is dangerous; yet, they are 99.9999 plus percent less likely to be injured or killed as a result of disciplinary action than a small child ... ''

'' ... there should be wide arrays of input devices for playing with screen pixels ... perhaps user friendly impromptu local / task specific web browsers could be employed to facilitate the creation and maintenance of masses of web pages for individual sites utilizing gui toolboxes of object oriented routines and pan and zoom you-are-here maps and impromptu task specific ''jargon keycode'' character systems and other languages ... ''

[jason1170]

Its sad what happened to her. My dad owned a pharamaceutical company, and worked with the NIH, mostly Dr. Burgdorfer. together they developed a product that inhibited and killed deadly bacteria infections like Enterococcus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (resistant to penicillin and may other antibiotics) and Streptococcus pneumoniae {resistant to many antibiotics). I wonder if it would work on MRSA. I''m gonna try to contact that CBS and that lady, they might be intersted.

and im not mentioning any names of anything cuz im really not interested in advertising. but MRSA, as far as I knnow, is a fairly new bacteria infection and so many more people are ending up with these deadly infections, that maybe they might be interested. Usually how it works is the news won''t talk about any treatment thats not heavily involved with the FDA. And basically the whole alternative medicine industry are dirty con artists. but Dr. Burgdorfer is pretty well known (u can try google) and whats more reputable then the NIH? Anyways it''s getting real bad out there with all these deadly infections, wicked things happen to those people. That lady got put through so much, just like so many others. Its time something gets done about all this.

[extremophil]

I agree with all the rest of you slobbering morons....It''s all a conspiracy by the government to kill everybody who loves puppies! The terrorists are winning!! Auurgggggg!!

[highduster]

As a medical technologist, back in the 70s I did a study of carrier status of nasty staph in my hospital, inspired by the rate of staph infections in newborns, particularly those born by Cesarean section. Over 75% of the nursing an physician staff were carriers, verified through nasal cultures. Simple treatment (once daily application in the nose) with opthalmic strength antibiotic cream temporarily reduced infections drastically.
When this was presented to the hospital administration, they said they could and would do nothing about it because the most senior staff members were all carriers. Physicians complained that daily treatments would put them at risk for other infections, so they would not cooperate. Medical literature searches show numerous studies that patients are often infected by the nasal flora (bacteria) of their caregivers.
Ironically, two years ago, my wife suffered a spinal abscess and respiratory arrest from MRSA following cardiac stent placement.
If hospitals and physicians will not cooperate, then it is time for the government to step in and protect the public. Simple reporting of cases would be a start. JCAHO and other such accrediting agencies require facilities to have policies, but they do not actively verify that the policies are either followed or working as intended.

[highduster]

As a medical technologist, back in the 70s I did a study of carrier status of nasty staph in my hospital, inspired by the rate of staph infections in newborns, particularly those born by Cesarean section. Over 75% of the nursing an physician staff were carriers, verified through nasal cultures. Simple treatment (once daily application in the nose) with opthalmic strength antibiotic cream temporarily reduced infections drastically.
When this was presented to the hospital administration, they said they could and would do nothing about it because the most senior staff members were all carriers. Physicians complained that daily treatments would put them at risk for other infections, so they would not cooperate. Medical literature searches show numerous studies that patients are often infected by the nasal flora (bacteria) of their caregivers.
Ironically, two years ago, my wife suffered a spinal abscess and respiratory arrest from MRSA following cardiac stent placement.
If hospitals and physicians will not cooperate, then it is time for the government to step in and protect the public. Simple reporting of cases would be a start. JCAHO and other such accrediting agencies require facilities to have policies, but they do not actively verify that the policies are either followed or working as intended.

[eggy1620]

Everyone, flipantflaw is not a person. It%u2019s a random word generator spamming the site. CBS.com could solve this problem, along with the Ron Paulers, by adopting the %u201Center the numbers you see here%u201D feature. But for some reason, CBS will not do it.

[flipantflaw]

'' .. it is farce / sci-fi / impossible in one, it is surreal, lieutenants what hold hands and weave bouquets, recycle garbage / garden to educational props w/ accents / dances with jingles, shopgift grass / dirt for cures for cancer / other margaritas, shift / toggle / travel, dance get well feed world get sick tax world hike naked dance dressed porn songs rallyd round billions sick beds swimming drifting tens millions spore bloom weed dragon trail fickle first aid lunch farm cottage studio trail crossing yseedsberry trail groups dotted w/ homed sheltets, speckled w/ drip compost fertilizet / drip water irrigatet, decorated with folk playing zero resistance free form tai chi aikido yogaerobic inkblot sport and puzzle for life and lunch the musical epic quest to cure the common death and the wondet supet flora poet ballot ballet bowl and the lusty forge your own epic karaoke feed the world with free food / free medicine for each and all forever and ever more, tho they''ve chased me to punish / persecute, and i''ve chased them to tell them not to punish / persecute, i''ve seen them heal, i''ve seen them save, i''ve seen them speak love into hearts with effortless unrewarded ease, they taught courtesy / effeciency / the absence of detention when the rule books demanded otherwise, my heart is of disbelief absolute and eternal, they did not do these things, and if they had: i''d not surrender my disbelief to be myself so unyielding .. ''

[enlightenu]

Feds won''t fight this harder because they know the only universal basic simple solution is bacteriophage based treatments, cleaners, dissinfectants, etc., against which MRSA doesn''t have a chance. They won''t push that because it won''t allow the big pharm companies to profit from developing short lived expensive drugs to fight it. Why do things the easy way when you can do it the hard way, the American way?

[starleo146]

'''' ... folk are able so have funds, sick beds are unable so don''''t have funds, so folk live and work at the sick beds where they give all their funds to those what are sick, but only so they''''ll always have someone laying around what knows all about helping the critters on their sick beds ... ''''

Posted by flipantflaw

WHAAAAT!!!!!