[Polybius]

...to prevent half a million deaths worldwide from a common bloodstream infection.

Sepsis is not "a" bloodstream infection. It is just a generic term to mean any infection that gets out of hand to the point that it invades the bloodstream.

[armymarinemom]

I thought that Jim Henson died from Group A beta hemolytic strep that was well advanced into a necrotic pneumonia before he sought treatment.

[Hildy]

I thought Jim Henson died from Lung Cancer. I'm going to look this up.

[Leisler]

Second hand smoke first. Think of the children.

[top of the world ma]

I have a friend who just had a quadruple by-pass last Thursday at The Texas Heart Institute in Houston. He was infused with Vancomycin 2 hours before surgery. The man sharing the prep room with my friend was also infused before his surgery. It must now be a common precaution.

[wideminded]

At a company I worked at once there was a manager whom everyone liked. His daughter worked there too. He was probably in his forties and seemed healthy if somewhat overweight. One Monday we heard the shocking news that he had suddenly died over the weekend ... of a blood infection. Many people in the company went to his funeral.

[Salvey]

Mis-read the headline. At first, it looked like, "Common Blood Infections Kill Muslims."

[Yeti]

Part of the problem is antibiotic overuse that has created drug-resistant germs.

Aggressive treatment should begin in the emergency room and include immediate use of broad-spectrum antibiotics rather than waiting a few days for test results to identify the specific germ

Antibiotic "overuse" has not "created" drug-resistant germs, but only revealed them by killing off the others. There have been drug-resistant strains around since before the beginning of our use of antibiotics.

Regarding the evolution of resistant strains AND the immediate harm done by any strain, antibiotic UNDERUSE is a bigger problem, by several orders of magnitude.

The fact that the two sentences I clipped in italics above can exist comfortably in the same article demonstrates the irrational thinking that has grown up around this problem.