Free Republic

Hospital patients not getting their teeth brushed, or not brushing their teeth themselves, is believed to be a leading cause of hundreds of thousands of cases of pneumonia a year in patients who have not been put on a ventilator. A majority of cases are non-ventilator hospital-acquired pneumonia, or NVHAP, which kills up to 30% of those infected. Many cases of NVHAP could be avoided if hospital staffers more dutifully brushed the teeth of bedridden patients, according to a growing body of peer-reviewed research. NVHAP, a risk for virtually all hospital patients, is often caused by bacteria from the mouth...

Acid-reflux suppressing drugs may modestly boost the risk of both community- and hospital-acquired pneumonia, according to a meta-analysis. Proton pump inhibitor (PPI) use predicted a 27% elevated risk of pneumonia overall (95% confidence interval 1.11 to 1.46), Chun-Sick Eom, MD, MPH, of Seoul National University Hospital in Seoul, South Korea, and colleagues found.

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILYHealth Care: Hospitals everywhere tend to be dirty places, but in Britain they tend to be downright lethal. Should we blame this on nationalized health care? It would be shortsighted not to place some of the culpability on Britain's socialist medical system. Nationalized health care, no matter how swell its supporters think it is, is afflicted with the same institutional flaw that plagues all collectivist systems: It lacks the proper incentives necessary to ensuring quality performance.In Britain, home of the National Health Service, the media are reporting that 5,000 patients die a year from hospital-acquired infections that contribute...