Posted on 05/28/2008 11:49:43 AM PDT by 60Gunner
Once again, the media has released a "nature is out to kill us all" article. Source: Comcast News. The writer of the article was, to be quite blunt, pretty damned irresponsible in selecting the information with which the reader is presented. Go figure.
I will break this down point by point and fill in the blanks after each article snippet. My comments are in boldface:
Para.1: More than 10,000 people per year are hospitalized with Clostridium difficile. Response: 10,000 people is about 0.00003% of the population of the United States. This hardly constitutes a widespread epidemic.
Para. 2: The germ is resistant to some antibiotics. Response: Most germs are resistant to certain kinds of antibiotics. It isn't because they are superbugs, but because the actions of some antibiotics do not affect the microorganisms metabolism. What must be remembered here is that no antibiotic works for every germ. That's why different types of antibiotics have been developed. We take a sample, grow it in a culture, and expose it to different antibiotics to determine its susceptibility.
Para.3: C-diff is found in the colon, can cause colitis, and is not killed by ordinary soap and water. Response: Here is some critical information that the reporter left out: 1)C-diff is always in the colon; other indigenous bacteria keep it in check. 2) not only will normal soap and water not kill C-diff, but alcohol-based hand sanitizers are also completely useless against C-Diff. The omission of this very important point may mislead laypersons into thinking that hand sanitizer will work when it certainly will not.
Snip to Para. 7: The lead author of the study attributes the increased virulence of C-diff to possible overuse and misuse of antibiotics.
Response: DUH! But there are other factors that play into this. Most importantly, it must be remembered that C-diff is a living organism and thus subject to mutation and adaptation. Nature has a nasty habit of changing just when we think we have it all figured out That's one of the reasons we have more than one kind of antibiotic for, say, Staphylococcal and Streptococcal infections.
Paras. 10-12: 2.3% of the C-diff cases in 2004 were fatal; Many of these fatal cases had other health problems.
Response: A 2.3 percent mortality rate is pretty darned good, and a lot better than the mortality rate for some illnesses that are not caused by a "super-bug." Furthermore, patients who have weakened defenses (very old, very young, or chronically-ill) already are at a disadvantage, no matter what kind of infection exists.
Closing paragraph: "This is not a time for alarm..."
Response: Then pray tell me, why the hell are you putting out a patchy story about a "superbug" that normal handwashing and "some antibiotics" won't destroy?
Here is the real deal on Clostridium difficile:
-It is indigenous to the human gut and is usually kept in check by other indigenous organisms. It resides in you. Isn't that wonderful?
-"Superinfection" does not usually occur unless the normal gut flora is wiped out, usually by broad-spectrum antibiotics, or unless the host is already compromized.
C-diff is not eliminated by normal soap and water or alcohol-based hand sanitizers. In the hospital setting we use Hibiclens, which if I recall correctly can be purchased at most pharmacies. (But don't throw out all of your soap and hand sanitizer; Hibiclens should not be used all the time. Your skin also has normal flora that act as a symbiotic perimeter defense against opportunistic bugs, and killing all of those erstwhile good guys all the time is not a good idea.) Any "super-soap" such as Hibiclens or Phisohex should be used only with the knowledge, at the recommendation, and under the supervision of your healthcare provider.
Like any infectious disease, the best treatment is prevention. A common practice that I have observed among physicians is that when they prescribe a broad-spectrum antibiotic such as a flouroquinilone (like Cipro)or cephalosporin (Like Keflex)to treat primary infections, they also prescribe metronidazole (Flagyl) to prevent C-diff superinfection. This is called "best practice" and improves patient outcomes.
Important notice: this article is not medical advice; this is only a critical review of a news report. (Dammit Jim, I'm a nurse, not a doctor!) Please consult your primary healthcare provider for medical advice.
Please remove the previous posting of this article, which I inadvertently posted when attempting to edit it. Thank you.
Ping! Please disregard the article I previously submitted- it was incomplete and I hit the wrong button. Thanks!
Thanks for the common sense gunner. Cultured dairy products, like yogurt and buttermilk, are also good sources of the helpful bacteria to keep this bad guy in check.
Hand washing does not kill many bacteria.
One purpose of soap, however, is to loosen bacteria from the skin.
After soaping, flowing water can literally “wash” bacteria off your hands and down the drain.
Good article.
What a remarkable thing to suggest to the press..accuracy.
Apostate...Gut grabbing headlines and hysteria sell papers.
Seems she visited her brother on a farm....The water source for household use was a lake..
His filtration system was working but not the sanitizer and she had mixed the 7 month old’s bottle with raw lake water.
She was hysterical about e.coli... but 48 hrs later the baby was still not sick.
Natural selection at work...The healthiest survive all but the most determined attacks.
What you will never hear the medical profession admitting is that the reason there are so many organisms that have developed resistance to antibiotics is that the medical community, i.e., medical doctors for decades have routinely prescribed antibiotics for colds, flu or just about any complaint because the patient wanted a "magic bullet", i.e., a "pill", and doctors only know how to prescribe drugs for various maladies. So for decades, all those viral based problems that antibiotics were useless against were "treated" by doctors who actually should have known better.
Now, when the "superbugs" start eating the antibiotics for lunch, the medical profession starts all this antibiotics "overuse" krapTM and accuse the patients of being the problem instead of admitting the iatrogenic and nosocomial basis for the problem.
I fully comprehend how patients have added to the problem by discontinuing a course of antibiotics once they start "feeling better", but I also know from experience that medical "professionals" have historically given little to no information about the regimen to patients for whom they are prescribing those antibiotics. "Here's a prescription for XYZillin, if you don't feel better, call the office and schedule another appointment" (kaching!). Gee, I wonder where the idea of "informed consent" came from lately. Couldn't have been from all the lawsuits when the side effects and adverse reactions of all the cut'n'burn pill rolling and needless surgery, could it?
The number of unnecessary medical and surgical procedures performed annually is over 7.5 million. 2.5% of the population. The number of people exposed to unnecessary hospitalization is 8.9 million. Nearly 3%. And these figures don't include the fact that physician caused acts are only reported less than 20% of the time. "The American medical system is the leading cause of injury and death in the United States." -- from Death by Medicine And these are figures from 5 years ago or so. It's only gotten worse, not better.
I do agree totally with you about the scare tactics of the Lame Stream Media. If it bleeds, it leads. But I also get really sick of hearing about how selfless and blameless the allopathic medical profession is when they are the actual cause of most medical problems. They ridicule and close their eyes to any kind of natural based remedy or non-invasive treatments and will try to persecute the medical "heretics" who want to use those modalities. [I watched teevee footage of jackbooted, body-armour clad, automatic weapon carrying DEA thugs raid a local medical clinic and confiscate patient records and treatment materials. Why? Because the medical doctor (not naturopath, spiritualist or unlicensed practitioner) was accused of prescribing too large of doses of... get this... Vitamin B.]
But I do agree with your analysis of this non-story in the LSM. Good to point out some of the facts.
Thanks for the primer, 60G.
Next, you’ll be telling me there’s no such thing as global warming =:0
Seriously, how did the visit to see your sis graduate go?
Anytime my kids are prescribed antibiotics, they get yogurt or Kefir with every meal. Never had a problem.
Except with kids sick of yogurt :)
Not the quack doctor I have been going to. I thought maybe I had a bladder infection so went to the doctor. She prescribed Cipro (no Flagyl) then told me to go get a urine test AFTER TAKING the Cipro to see if it cleared it up. I didn't do as she said and went right away to get the urine test and guess what. NO bladder infection. Note to self. I need to find a new doctor
I wouldn’t doubt that what I had recently waws not C-Diff instead of the Giardia they assumed. I’d recently been on two or three courses of antibiotics for my teeth and I’m sure things were out of balance. Even with the evil antibiotic they gave me for Giardia, things did not really get better until I made myself sick eating yogurt and other helpful foods.
Excellent article! Once again exposing the media's "the sky is falling" mentality.
An interesting aside: Natural Selection theory would indicate that the organisms didn't "develop" anything in response to the antibiotics. Rather, similar other extant species that already are resistant have move to the forefront since their rivals for resources are dying by the billions due to the antibiotics. How that extant species came to exist with a resistance developed to something that didn't exist in nature is any one's guess.
Fixed!
TeeHee..
Just another example of how the ‘experts’ fail to consider anything close to everything, but fail to be open to learning anything other than what they needed to pass their tests in medicle school. They seemed to be trapped in what they learned in school, never to develop anything more.
Hi, Spunky. Thanks for sharing your story. I am curious: did your doctor run a urinalysis to confirm a UTI before prescribing Cipro, or did she just listen to your description of the problem and write a scrip based on your subjective data?
She just listened to my symptoms wrote me an Rx for the Cipro and told me to go get a urinalysis AFTER taking the Cipro to see if it had cleared up the infection she assumed I had. I didn't listen to her. I went and got the urinalysis first. No infection so I never got the Rx filled for the Cipro.
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