"an uncanny talent for weird bacterial sex"

[datasuspect]

By Jeremy Manier | Tribune staff reporter
November 4, 2007


The evolutionary path of the bacterium called MRSA wound around the globe for decades before a pair of Chicago doctors in 1996 noticed the bug had taken an ominous turn.

Before then, the germ's resistance to antibiotics was of concern mainly in hospitals, where steadily growing numbers of patients were contending with the stubborn staph infection. Reports of healthy people who contracted MRSA outside of a hospital were rare and isolated, the stuff of obscure medical journal articles.

But the bacterium, formally known as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, was beginning to depart from the habits it had settled into during years of adaptation to human hosts.

At the University of Chicago Medical Center, pediatric specialists Dr. Robert Daum and Dr. Betsy Herold held an impromptu meeting to discuss a dramatic increase in young patients showing up at the hospital with MRSA infections they'd gotten in the community. Dozens of children were sickened by the resistant bacteria without having contact with hospitals—an unprecedented outbreak.



http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/chi-mrsa_finalnov04,0,5996060.story?coll=chi_tab01_layout



i remember when i posted about this some time ago (i think last year) some people razzed me and basically were generally dismissive.

no big health threat, huh?

[rug]

1. Is this another thread about Republicans?

[sir_captain]

2. i don't mean to be dismissive now either

but the media is overblowing MRSA a bit. a much bigger worry is vancomycin resistance.

and in case, the real issue is that nearly everything is becoming resistant to the first several generations of antibiotics. other than strep, there's not a whole lot of use for penicillin (or methicillin for that matter) at this point, for instance. and if we keep throwing cipro and the other fluorquinolones at everything, we're going to end up with stuff that makes MRSA look downright pleasant. oy.