- Hello Jeff - I could not help but notice #4: Cell
Phones Cause Superbug Outbreaks in Hospitals. Interesting. There is a
lot more on the website below but I thought the information below is very
important to share.
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- Patty
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- From TheDailyBeast.com
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- 1. Superbugs Spread the Most in Hospitals
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- It's true: The hospital is one of the easiest places
to get a superbug, as it presents so many potential breeding grounds. Scientific
American estimates that nearly 100,000 people die each year from bugs they pick
up in health-care facilities, and almost 1.7 million patients contract
hospital infections annually, according to the CDC. How does this relate
to superbugs? Well, they evolve by becoming resistant to antibiotics, and
heavy antibiotic use in hospitals is one of the major factors in their
growth. Also, think about how frequently there are open wounds in hospitals,
or tubes carrying blood: All are breeding grounds for superbugs. The latest
superbug, NDM-1, has a shadowy past with hospitals. British doctors said
14 of the patients found to have the virus had been hospitalized in
India or Pakistan recently, mostly for cosmetic surgery. NDM-1 is
also resistant to most antibiotics and can easily travel from one bacteria
to another-meaning it can travel easily via other bacterial infections.
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- 2. Superbugs Love College Campuses
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- Ah, college. So many of those first "shared experiences"
that are considered the cornerstone of American college life-communal showers,
waiting to wash the sheets until returning to mom and dad's, the cafeteria's
frequently-used trays, beer pong-are breeding grounds for superbugs.
In 2007, nine athletes from Iona College in New York contracted methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA, a staph infection commonly associated
with hospitals.
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- 3. Superbugs Can Travel in Food
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- Since superbugs thrive in any living organism, it's only
natural to assume they can be carried in food. It's just not something
you really want to think about. The same things that have caused superbugs
in humans-overuse of antibiotics, unclean instruments, close quarters-are
key in their growth in animals. But one of the biggest problems with superbugs
in animals is a lack of testing in processed food plants. Recent studies
have found the superbug MRSA in retail cuts of pork, chicken, beef and
other meats not only in the U.S., but in Europe and Asia as well. And earlier
this year, researchers said China's excessive use of antibiotics in its
farm production stood to be a major cause of superbug growth in the
food chain.
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- 4. Cell Phones Cause Superbug Outbreaks in Hospitals
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- In 2009, researchers in Turkey found that 95 percent
of doctors' and nurses' cell phones had at least one strain of bacteria,
and 35 percent had two. So, OK, not all bacteria is not a superbug, right?
No, but nearly one in eight of these cell phones were found to harbor MRSA,
the rampant superbug found in hospitals. And cell phones can be particularly
deadly; not only are they infrequently cleaned, but they are touched by
hands, ears, and mouths. Science Daily recommends that everyone undergo
strict infection control methods to prevent the spread of superbugs
via cell phones, and remember to regularly clean your phone or think about
the phone you are borrowing.
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- 5. Gonorrhea Could Be the Next Superbug
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- When exactly gonorrhea burst onto the scene is not known,
and although it's existed for centuries, scientists say it has a fair chance
of being the next superbug. The World Health Organization estimates there
are 340 million new cases worldwide of all sexually transmitted diseases,
including gonorrhea, every year in people among the ages of 15 to 49. What makes
gonorrhea dangerous is that it has very few symptoms until the disastrous
ones, such as ectopic pregnancy and pelvic inflammatory disease. But this
is not the only factor in pushing gonorrhea toward a superbug-also there
are very few new drugs available because it is not as deadly an STD as
HIV/AIDS or even syphilis. As a result, doctors normally treat gonorrhea
that is drug resistant by piling on more antibiotics, causing the bacteria
to grow stronger and stronger.
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- http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/201
0-08-12/superbug-facts-to-know-as-ndm-1-emerges/
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- Patricia A. Doyle DVM, PhD Bus Admin, Tropical Agricultural
Economics Univ of West Indies Please visit my "Emerging Diseases"
message board at:http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php Also
my new website: http://drpdoyle.tripod.com/ Zhan le Devlesa tai
sastimasa Go with God and in Good Health
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