Posted on 10/22/2007 6:55:11 PM PDT by blam
MRSA 'deadlier than bioweapons'
Last Updated: 2:44am BST 23/10/2007
Superbugs such as MRSA pose a far greater threat to humanity than bioterrorism, a genetics pioneer claimed.
Dr Venter warns of the superbug threat
The warning came from Craig Venter, an American scientist currently working on a project which uses DNA building blocks to create the world's first synthetic life form.
Critics argue that artificially-created microbes – bacteria which can cause disease – potentially pose a grave danger, by either invading the environment or being used to manufacture deadly bioweapons.
But Dr Venter maintains that drug-resistant bacteria such as MRSA are a far more clear and present danger, and argues that his work could provide the only effective way of stopping the superbugs.
Dr Venter pointed out that antibiotic-resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus, such as MRSA, were killing more people in the US than tuberculosis.
A strain of the bug had now appeared that could not be treated by any known type of antibiotic.
"I'm much more concerned about that than any threat of bioterrorism," he told journalists at the Science Media Centre in London yesterday.
"The US government is doing very little about it and I'm not aware of the British government doing anything substantial about it.
"Drug-resistant Staphylococcus is the equivalent of a new biological infection."
Scientists at the US-based J Craig Venter Institute have already succeeded in transplanting the complete genetic code from one microbial organism to another and "booting it up" like new software in a computer.
The next step is to build from scratch an artificial genome – a complete set of genes in a cell or organism. This goal might be only months away.
Dr Venter insisted that worries about synthetic organisms were unfounded. Much of the fear had been fuelled by Hollywood fantasies with no bearing in reality, he said.
"There's no Andromeda Strain," he said, referring to a 1971 film in which a biotoxin destroys a town.
"There's nothing new or different about synthetic genomics other than the starting point for the information."
In 1995 Dr Venter became the first scientist to work out the complete genetic code of an organism.
As president and founder of Celera Genomics, he was notorious for producing a private version of the human genome which offered information to scientists for a fee. In contrast, the rival Human Genome Project, a collaboration of scientists from all over the world, allowed completely free access to its data.
But Dr Venter, who is in the UK to promote his autobiography, said he had been wrongly portrayed as a capitalist exploiter of the genome.
He pointed out that without private money, he would have been forced to retire.
He added: "If you look at the record, I have no human gene patents and my institution has no human gene patents, yet my biggest critics do."
Does this mean that global warming is now passe as the next looming crisis?
This year’s panic “bug”. Of note; SARS, Avian Flu, Asian Flu, humanoids, ED …
In other words, give me all of your money and I will save you.
MRSA is all around us and on us every day and kills very, very few. I don't think that I agree with his conclusion that it is a bigger danger than bioweapons.
One more reason to stay out of hospitals unless absolutely required by life and death.
I’ve just heard of the friend of a friend who came out of a “simple joint reconstruction” with a changed and rapidly deteriorating personality problem. Having heard the timeline and the progression, it sounds like it was precipitated by the anesthesia.
The coroner on CSI Las Vegas?
Can we please stop this nonsense BS? Such misinformation does nothing but create mass hysteria. MRSA is NOT a super bug that is resistant to all antibiotics. It is, only as its name state, resistant to methicillin. MRSA is easily treatable with a variety of cheap antibiotics that have existed for years. MRSA is very succeptible to Tetracycline, Doxycline, Bactrim (Trimethoprim/Sulfamethoxazole), Rifampin, Clindamycin.
MRSA is also succeptible to Vancomycin, Daptomycin (Cubicin), and Zyvox.
Death from MRSA is very, very, very rare. Can we please stop the mass hysteria now?!!
The key to treating MRSA is to use the multi-drug regimen approach. With community MRSA cutaneous abscesses, my method of wide incision and drainage, agressive wound care and debridements, short period of whirlpool therapy, in combination with a few days course of IV abx (usually Vancomycin, occasionally the more expensive Cubicin or Zyvox) and 1 week course of Bactrim DS with Doxycycline has been 100% successful with zero failure rate.
My mother died from it as do many elderly people. My daughter got it from a hospital. It is going around the schools, prisons, gyms, hospitals & many nursing homes have it. Not everyone can get over it as easily as you have said. People are dying from it. It is not very,very, very rare.
ping
I’d like to think of myself as one who wouldn’t fall for hype and hysteria. All I do know is this thing almost killed me in 2006. It also killed a friend of mine. The Doctor who treated my infection told me 2 years ago that this was by far the most serious problem that Doctors/Hospitals faced in the coming years. And now we read this:
More U.S. Deaths From MRSA Than AIDS
In 2005, More Than 18,000 Deaths Attributed to MRSA, CDC Reports
http://www.webmd.com/news/20071016/more-us-deaths-from-mrsa-than-aids
If you could explain this, I’d be more extremely receptive and open-minded...and I mean that, earnestly...
TIA..
MRSA is ubiquitous these days. Epidemiology wise, its prevalence is 7-10% across the country. Comparing the total numbers of patients who were infected with MRSA to the mortality rate, death from MRSA is still, in fact, rare. Elderly patients die from MRSA because of their immunocompromised state but MRSA is NOT super-resistant to every antibiotics out there. MRSA requires more agressive treatment, yes, but is still very treatable. More patients die of other strains of bacteria than MRSA. I treat patients with MRSA infections every day in my practice.
My wife’s father got it in the hospital and never came home. We were told when he contracted it that it was virtually unstoppable.
Granted, he was 85 and his system was weak, still, it killed him.
Many elderly people get MRSA. I know from my dad's nursing home. The nurses aides tell me as I have a weakened immune system. When my mom got it she was taken to the hospital where we had to suit up to visit her. The nursing home knew full well she had it yet allowed us to visit her without taking precautions.
Same with my mother. She was 83 & just could not fight it off.
What’s your opinion of replacing stainless steel surfaces in hospitals with copper or copper-bearing alloys as a means of controlling infection?
Less patients die from AIDS in the US because of advances in pharmacology over the years. HIV/AIDS have around for a while now. MRSA, too, have been around for a while but not as widespread as it is today. I remember during the 1980’s whenever we came across a patient with HIV, we could always tell. They had the typical emaciated sallow look with temporal wasting. These days with advances in pharmacology, multi-drug regimen of protease inhibitors, Nucleoside/Nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhitors, fusion inhibitors, non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, etc...the myriads of anti-retroviral therapies that exist have successfully prolong the lives of HIV patients to the point now that you can’t tell anymore by merely looking a patient whether he/she has HIV.
MRSA is a recent phenomenon in the sense that it is more prevalent these days than it used to be. But still, the overall rate across the country is 7-10%. Believe it or not, there are many doctors out there who are oblivious to MRSA and don’t know how to treat MRSA. I see patients every day in my practice who have been to some other clinics and placed on antibiotics that MRSA is resistant against, or have been inadequately treated with poor wound care. Yes, MRSA requires agressive treatment, but it IS treatable.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.