{"id":204,"date":"2010-04-09T11:23:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-09T11:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anne.myupcomingsite.com\/the-deadly-menace-of-mrsa\/"},"modified":"2013-08-06T12:54:39","modified_gmt":"2013-08-06T12:54:39","slug":"the-deadly-menace-of-mrsa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anne.myupcomingsite.com\/?p=204","title":{"rendered":"The Deadly Menace of MRSA"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>My blog is normally devoted to talking about communications trends, writing tips, etc. When I headed to Danya International yesterday, a government contractor that works with CDC on health communications and program evaluation activities, to hear about Maryn McKenna\u2019s new book <i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.superbugthebook.com\/\">S<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/goog_1078115715\">UPERBUG<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.superbugthebook.com\/\">: The Fatal Menace of MRSA<\/a><\/i>, about the growing epidemic of\u00a0drug-resistant staph, I fully expected to leave with insights into this frightening epidemic, and into the writing path that got McKenna to this book. \u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/anne.myupcomingsite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/blogger\/_96QEPvIqn6U\/S78Mx1qj_lI\/AAAAAAAAAHw\/dBmGMLEfvXc\/s1600\/superbug-cover.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/anne.myupcomingsite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/blogger\/_96QEPvIqn6U\/S78Mx1qj_lI\/AAAAAAAAAHw\/dBmGMLEfvXc\/s200\/superbug-cover.jpg\" width=\"132\" height=\"200\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>Afterall, she was an award-winning health reporter at the <i>Atlanta Journal-Constitution<\/i>, who got her nickname \u201cScary Disease Girl\u201d during her tenure covering CDC and the government\u2019s investigations of major disease outbreaks.<\/div>\n<div>I was completely blown away by what I learned about MRSA and the lack of a coordinated response to this spreading crisis by the medical community here in theU.S. I suppose it shouldn\u2019t be that big of a surprise, given that it\u2019s an industry that polices itself. \u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>First, some facts:<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>One-third of theU.S. population walks around all the time with MRSA on their skin and in their noses.\u00a0 It\u2019s a very common bacterial found on large numbers of people.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0In theU.S. in a single year, there are 19,000 deaths and 370,000 hospitalizations from MRSA. Overall healthcare spending on combating it is conservatively estimated at $4.8 billion a year.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0In 1968, it arrived in theU.S. strictly as a \u201chospital infection\u201d targeting mostly the elderly.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0In 1980, it struck a hospital in WashingtonState, when a car accident victim in Texas was transported to Seattle and passed the skin infection on in the burn unit and later the ICU.<\/li>\n<li>Community-based strains of MRSA are affecting kids \u2013 specifically, student athletes as the news headlines continue to report. The kids are not showering and are not cleaning their sports equipment. They are getting it from skin-to-skin contact.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>One Mother&#8217;s Nightmare<\/b><\/p>\n<div>But MRSA also has infected healthy women after they give birth in hospitals. Women like Diane Lore, a 20-year journalist and former medical editor of the AJC, who is featured in McKenna\u2019s book. She contracted a community-based strain of MRSA in June 2003 after giving birth to her third child, when her baby daughter first clamped down so hard that she tore her mo ther\u2019s right nipple.\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>Family video footage inside the hospital room before the breastfeeding occurred showed a gloved nurse inserting a finger into the child\u2019s mouth to calm the crying baby. Lore, who lost six months of bonding time with her infant daughter combating the infection, eventually overcame it after enduring incorrect diagnoses, and multiple courses of antibiotics until she finally received the right treatment.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, she and her husband also faced a formidable battle with their \u00a0insurance company on covering the expensive treatment. Lore held up a bottle of some of the leftover course of antibiotics, which she held onto even after her bout with MRSA passed out of fear of a return of the infection. The cost of one little white pill was a staggering $100.<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\u201cIt was a horrible, traumatic time,\u201d Lore said, \u201cI don\u2019t\u2019 remember my little girl at all. I was quarantined up in my son\u2019s bedroom (out of fear that she was infectious.)\u201d At one point, she and her husband drew up their will and had their \u201clast talks.\u201d<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\u201cMRSA was a hospital infection but it\u2019s not \u2013 it was just MRSA\u2019s first epidemic,\u201d notes McKenna, explaining that contingents within the medical establishment were very reluctant to acknowledge that community-based strains could actually hit inside a hospital.<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>The third wave of the epidemic is now cropping up in ano ther area &#8212; agriculture \u2013 infecting both farmers and their animals, notably pigs, which means it will find its way into the food chain. The culprit? Widespread use of antibiotics and the overcrowded living conditions of the animals on industrialized farms.<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><b>What We Can Do\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>So, what can be done about preventing MRSA\u2019s spread?<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/anne.myupcomingsite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/blogger\/_96QEPvIqn6U\/S78NLskVl1I\/AAAAAAAAAH4\/xWH9H8fgoeo\/s1600\/handwashing.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/anne.myupcomingsite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/blogger\/_96QEPvIqn6U\/S78NLskVl1I\/AAAAAAAAAH4\/xWH9H8fgoeo\/s200\/handwashing.jpg\" width=\"200\" height=\"150\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div>Hygiene is king &#8212; McKenna urges everyone to wash their hands frequently.\u00a0 If you are going to the hospital or have a loved one going in, get screened for MRSA first. People entering ERs should be screened before being admitted into the general hospital population. \u00a0This practice of isolation and detection is widely used in parts of Europe and a CDC trial of a Veteran\u2019s Hospital in Pittsburgh was so effective that it\u2019s now in full force in all hospitals in the VA system, McKenna says.<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>And, hospital staff needs to be educated on hygiene practices, including frequent hand washings and glove changes. \u201cNon-stop messaging\u201d and the threat of lost executive bonuses helped one Charlotte, N.C., hospital get hand-washing hygiene up to 98 percent from 50 percent.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>McKenna holds out hope that the move toward electronic healthcare records, which would enable \u201cpeople\u2019s records to be portable with them,\u201d could help doctors more quickly diagnose MRSA in patients.\u00a0 Also, new rapid test equipment, currently very expensive, can detect MRSA within 24 hours.\u00a0She also urges people to not be afraid to ask questions of doctors and nurses. Lore urges that if you have a loved one sick in the hospital, be a watchdog and advocate by their bedside.<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><b>Word of Mouth\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>Mike Greenwell, Danya&#8217;s vice president of Health Marketing and Communications, notes that Danya will be assisting CDC with a public service campaign on MRSA in the coming months, and he sought input on whether the campaign should target\u00a0healthcare workers or consumers. The consensus was the general public.On the communications front, word of mouth through social media and leveraging mommy bloggers are important outreach methods, which are going to be relied on more given the cutbacks in investigative, in-depth health reporting in newspaper rooms around the country.\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>So, stay tuned, you will be hearing more about \u00a0MRSA&#8217; s menace and what we as a society need to do to combat its spread. And keep your hands clean.<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Listen to Mckenna&#8217;s March 23 interview on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/templates\/story\/story.php?storyId=124999740\">NPR&#8217;s Fresh Air program.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My blog is normally devoted to talking about communications trends, writing tips, etc. When I headed to Danya International yesterday, a government contractor that works with CDC on health communications<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[379],"tags":[643,641,640,642,639],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-drug-resistant-staph","tag-health-reporting","tag-maryn-mckenna","tag-mrsa","tag-superbug"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anne.myupcomingsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anne.myupcomingsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anne.myupcomingsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anne.myupcomingsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anne.myupcomingsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/anne.myupcomingsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":810,"href":"https:\/\/anne.myupcomingsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions\/810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anne.myupcomingsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anne.myupcomingsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anne.myupcomingsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}