Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), asometimes referred to as a super staph infection, is a specific strain of the Staphylococcus aureus bacterium that has develope...
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Community Testing: A Key to MRSA Eradication
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Public Health complacency over the emergence of toxic MRSA infections is inexcusable. Although the task is far more difficult now than had decisive action been taken earlier, it is still potentially possible to eradicate MRSA from the community. The key to eradication is the relative simplicity of detecting MRSA in the environment. As public facilities are proven to harbor MRSA, those responsible for the facilities will become obligated to undertake more effective cleaning procedures.
This approach is now underway with some of the major college football programs. For example, the locker rooms and equipment of the University of Georgia’s Athletic Department are being routinely tested for MRSA and all players and coaching staff screened for carriage of MRSA. Unfortunately, many of the teams they will encounter this season have yet to accept the challenge of becoming free of MRSA. Playgrounds, schools, childcare centers, doctors’ offices and healthcare clinics, hotels, traumatic work places and other risky environments should all be regularly screened for MRSA. Hospitals have been seeding MRSA infected patients into the community without regard to other family members or social contacts of the patients. The majority of hospitals choose not to screen admitted patients. Contributing to this policy is the argument that should a patient test negative and subsequently become infected; the hospital will not have a legal defense that the patient was the probable source of the infection. Nor are hospitals encouraging routine MRSA testing of their staff even though surveys are suggesting up to 9% may be MRSA carriers. Healthcare workers are placing not only their patients at risk for invasive disease, but also family members and the community-at-large. A catalyst for change is the ability of the public to directly test for MRSA. An inexpensive “Staph Identification Plate for MRSA Contamination” and other methods can be easily used by anyone to determine the presence of MRSA in public facilities. Those in charge of the safety of the facilities that test positive for MRSA can be advised of the need for decontamination. For the program to become a national civil rights movement, large numbers of volunteers will be needed to perform the testing and to cover the approximate $3.00 net cost per test. This message should be shared with as many groups as possible including those who have already witnessed the severity of an invasive MRSA infection. Simply knowing that the public has the capacity and willingness to test for MRSA will likely provoke a meaningful Public Health response to the growing MRSA epidemic. More information is available at www.s3support.com or by sending an email to s3support@mail.com Kind regards, W. John Martin, M.D., Ph.D. for the Institute of Progressive Medicine, a non-profit public charity. Posted on 10/08/06, 01:10 pm |
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John, you refer to MRSA as "toxic". Could you expand on this idea, please?
I became subject to chronic MRSA by way of immune damage acquired through exposure to the neurotoxins produced by indoor mold contamination. That is to say, I know a little thing or two now about what neurotoxins can really do, and I'm certainly no stranger to the foibles of public health policy and the liability fears of property and business owners that help to fuel the lack of action. I live with the results every day now - in Metro Atlanta, for what it's worth. And yet, I had never before heard MRSA described quite this way. Are you saying that staph also produces endotoxins of its own? 
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Dear S. Edwards,
I use the term "toxic" in describing the community acquired MRSA to indicate the presence of the Panton Valentine Leukocidin (PVL) toxin. The critical event foreshadowing the current outbreak of MRSA infections was the combination within Staphylococcus aureus of both a mec gene for methicillin resistance and the PVL toxin coding gene complex. This combination was first reported out of Australia in 1992. I cover this topic in a paper entitled "Malignant Bacteria: The Evolution of Toxic MRSA." It is available under the section on MRSA on the web site www.s3support.com Kind regards, John.
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I did read that piece. I get what you were saying now. I really didn't understand about the two types of staph aureus. Thanks for explaining.
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Hi Cindy,
I'm so sorry to hear you've been through so much with this. I hope you will see fit to speak up and tell risk management at the hospital what happened to you. State law or not, if they didn't listen to you because you were sick, they'll listen to you because you are a potential business problem. This is a completely legitimate way to give feedback that can bring real change. Until you speak up, all they see is the records - which may not contain your further "adventures" at home. One of my own problems turned out to be the prevailing notion that a couple of diflucan is sufficient to knock out the candida overgrowth (yeast) caused by all the antibiotics. This is not true for everyone! The fact that you don't itch at one end or the other doesn't mean the overgrowth in the gut has been controlled. Candida is fungus, antibiotics are fungus. All fungi produce endotoxins of one sort or another. This is how they compete for food and space - they literally poison one another. If you're one of the people vulnerable to those endotoxins, you can get into trouble with candida or antibiotics, or even environmental fungal toxins very easily. It's not even particularly rare - just very misunderstood and heavily underdiagnosed. The end result of all this can be immune problems that in turn lead to chronic trouble with MRSA - you basically end up with a dog chasing its own tail. By the time I found the right care, my liver was swollen, body pain was insane, and I felt just about like you describe. Obviously, I can't say you have the same problem. It just sounds miserably and maddeningly familiar. Despite some very bad experiences, there are some really extraordinary physicians who are genuinely interested in treating these emerging illnesses - not only as discrete problems, but as they work together. Linear thinking is what brought us both antibiotics and MRSA, so it's important to begin really thinking of it all as a system that operates with no particular regard for medical specialties. That's why I jumped a little when John described mrsa as toxic. I already knew about fungal toxins, but I had been thinking of mrsa as strictly infectious in nature. Clearly, that was ignorance on my part - a different kind of toxin, but an important one. If mrsa can wipe out leukocytes in that way, then that dog is chasing it's tail even a little harder than I already thought. Can go off-list, if you want to swap local references. Best to You, Serena
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