CDC: Deadly bacterial illness may be spreading

The Houston Chronicle ^ | Dec. 1, 2005 | MIKE STOBBE

[neverdem]

Associated Press

ATLANTA -- A deadly bacterial illness commonly seen in people on antibiotics appears to be growing more common — even in patients not taking such drugs, federal health officials warned today.

The bacteria are Clostridium difficile, also known as C-diff. The germ is becoming a regular menace in hospitals and nursing homes, and last year it was blamed for 100 deaths over 18 months at a hospital in Quebec, Canada.

Recent cases in four states show it is appearing more often in healthy people who have not been admitted to health-care facilities or even taken antibiotics, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"What exactly has made C-diff act up right now, we don't know," said Dr. L. Clifford McDonald, a CDC epidemiologist.

C-diff is found in the colon and can cause diarrhea and a more serious intestinal condition known as colitis. It is spread by spores in feces. But the spores are difficult to kill with conventional household cleaners.

C-diff has grown resistant to certain antibiotics that work against other colon bacteria. The result: When patients take those antibiotics, particularly clindamycin, competing bacteria die off and C-diff explodes.

The CDC report focused on 33 cases reported since 2003.

Twenty-three involved otherwise healthy people in the Philadelphia area who were not admitted to a hospital within three months of illness. Ten more were otherwise healthy pregnant women who had had brief hospital stays. Those reports came from Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey and New Hampshire.

One of the 33 patients died — a 31-year-old Pennsylvania woman who was 14 weeks pregnant with twins when she first went to the emergency room with symptoms. Despite treatment with antibiotics considered effective against C-diff, she lost the fetuses and then died.

She had been treated about three months earlier for a urinary tract infection with an antibiotic, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole. Ten others among the 33 patients had taken clindamycin.

But in eight of the 33 cases, patients said they had not taken any antibiotics within three months of the onset of symptoms.

[djf]

Yeah, the last time I was in a health food store, they had tons of stuff for people with gluten allergies.

It's funny, because I imagine if you told a doctor twenty years ago that you thought bread was causing you problems, he'd a probably told you to get your head examined.

I have very little faith in the medical profession.

[metmom]

And then scientists (of all varieties) wonder why people are skeptical of their pronouncements. I think everyone but them realizes that they haven't got all the answers yet; and yet they treat each new *discovery* as if it's the final word on the subject, until -oops, hee, hee, hee we were wrong.

[chuckles]

Getting a diagnosed case of Crohn's is more than hives. If a doctor tell someone they have Crohn's and hasn't done a colonoscopy with biopsy, then they should be sued. There is a genetic test, also, that is about 80% accurate. My theory is it is caused by a tuberculin type bacteria that comes from milk. Why some get it and others don't may have to do with weak immune systems. The bacteria is not killed by ordinary antibiotics and kills off the normal bacteria in the gut. Replacing the dead bacteria with probiotics does help. Remicade stops the symptoms and stops the tissue attack for my daughter.

[Itzlzha]

Oops...yes, Candida.

It was late, and I was in pain....apologies for my not catching that.