MRSA: Public Health Approach Often Lacking in Hospital

Creating Health Institute and Natural Health News as well as The Oake Centre for natural health education has been working on effective approached to MRSA since 1993.  We have some effective ways to address this because we think outside the box. Search for our many articles using the box in the right column.

Many hospitals don't screen for MRSA

CHICAGO, Aug. 23 (UPI) -- Less than half of U.S. hospitals screen for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a strain of bacteria resistant to antibiotics, researchers say.
Yoojung Yang, a fellow at the University of Illinois at Chicago, says 43 percent of the 102 U.S. hospitals responding to a survey have a procedure in place to screen patients for MRSA.
Yang explains prevention is the best treatment for MRSA -- a staph infection in healthcare patients caused by a strain of bacteria resistant to antibiotics.
Yang and colleagues say their survey indicates nearly all of the responding hospitals have adopted hand-hygiene practices. Some have also adopted other preventive practices such as using gowns and gloves and isolating MRSA-positive patients.
Nearly 75 percent of the surveyed hospitals also fight MRSA by reviewing prescriptions orders. More than half place restrictions on the use of select anti-microbials -- especially newer drugs such linezolid, daptomycin and tigecycline -- to maintain optimal use and to reduce the risk of bacterial resistance.
"The results of our survey suggest that pharmacists play a key role in the treatment of MRSA infections, because they have the knowledge of how best anti-microbials can be used," Yang said in a statement.
The findings are published in the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacist.

© 2010 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

And on another agency front, FDA admits to not testing seafood for toxic heavy metals

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Posted in: MRSA,natural MRSA treatment

MRSA infections rapidly increasing in children

I have a number of articles at leaflady.org and 13 related articles about MRSA here at Natural Health News. I have been investigating this issue since 1993 and have developed an approach that would be effective without relying on drugs that are currently not effective for this bacteria.

My basic protocol involves the use of pure essential oils (a common therapy in conventional medicine in France)and an herbal formula that was tested at Dana Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard. It was this herbal formula that led to the FDA attacking my organization several years ago.

I now have a new weapon in my arsenal (Alli-C, ref=Dr.Eversole). This product is tested for effectiveness against MRSA and it passes each and every time.

I also have a resource for cleaning that goes beyond the standard chemical approach used in most health facility housekeeping departments.

I surely wish all the medical types would get out of their "box" and forget trying to come up with a new drug that may or may not work.

Serious infections rising in U.S. children
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Children in the United States increasingly are developing serious head and neck infections with a drug-resistant type of "superbug" bacteria called MRSA, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

They said rates of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, are rising in children, and called on doctors to be more judicious in prescribing antibiotics.

"There is a nationwide increase in the prevalence of MRSA in children with head and neck infections that is alarming," said Dr. Steven Sobol of Emory University, whose study appears in the Archives of Otalaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.

MRSA previously had been a major concern only in hospitals, attacking patients who are already weakened by disease. But recent outbreaks in the community in otherwise healthy children have raised new concerns.

Sobol noted that other studies have shown increases in community-acquired infections of the skin and soft tissue, but some institutions have observed MRSA infections among children with head and neck infections, such as those involving the ear, nose, throat or sinuses.

To get a sense of the scope of the outbreak, the researchers studied 21,009 children ages 1 to 18 with head and neck infections caused by Staphylococcus aureus from 300 hospitals across the nation between 2001 and 2006.

While only 12 percent of the staph infections in 2001 showed signs of antibiotic resistance, that number more than doubled to 28 percent in just five years.

Nearly 60 percent of all MRSA infections of the head and neck among children in the study were acquired outside hospitals. Most were in children's ears.

The researchers suggest that doctors conduct careful testing of head and neck infections, and prescribe antibiotics only when they will do some good.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 94,000 Americans get serious, invasive MRSA infections each year and 19,000 die.

Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen, editing by Will Dunham and David Wiessler.
Copyright © 2009 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

See also: A New Weapon in the Battle Against Drug-Tolerant Bacteria

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Posted in: health news,independent health news,MRSA,natural care,natural health news,natural MRSA treatment,natural news