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A new, highly drug-resistant strain of the “flesh-eating” MRSA bacteria is being spread among gay men in San Francisco and Boston, researchers reported on Monday. In a study published online by the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, the bacteria seemed to be spread most easily through anal intercourse but also through casual skin-to-skin contact and touching contaminated surfaces. The authors warned that unless microbiology laboratories were able to identify the strain and doctors prescribed the proper antibiotic therapy, the infection could soon spread among other groups and become a wider threat. The new strain seems to have “spread rapidly” in...

A new variety of staph bacteria, highly resistant to antibiotics and possibly transmitted by sexual contact, is spreading among gay men in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles, researchers reported Monday. The study released online by the journal Annals of Internal Medicine found the highest concentrations of infection by the drug-resistant bug in and around San Francisco's Castro district and among patients who visit health clinics that treat HIV infections in gay men in San Francisco and Boston. he study estimated that 1 in 588 residents living within the Castro neighborhood 94114 ZIP code area is infected with...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 /Christian Newswire/ -- Reuters has reported that, "A drug-resistant strain of potentially deadly bacteria has moved beyond the borders of U.S. hospitals and is being transmitted among gay men during sex, researchers said on Monday. "They said methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, is beginning to appear outside hospitals in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles." "'Once this reaches the general population, it will be truly unstoppable,' said Binh Diep, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco who led the study." According to the study, at this point, homosexual men are 13 times more...

SAN FRANCISCO, January 15, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A new medical study appearing in the Annals of American Medicine shows that homosexuals are spreading a new, highly-infectious flesh-eating bacteria amongst themselves, most probably through anal intercourse. The bacterium, called MRSA USA300, is impervious to front-line antibiotics and can only be treated with rarer drugs, primarily Vancomycin. Researchers say that the bug, which is a type of staphylococcus, is primed to develop immunity to that drug as well. Infected patients may have inflammation, abscesses, and tissue loss in the affected areas. Although the bacterium does not literally "eat" the body, it manufactures...

'Flesh-eating' MRSA threatens Britain By Caroline Gammell and Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles Last Updated: 5:49pm GMT 15/01/2008 A potentially deadly and highly drug resistant strain of MRSA has developed which can lead to a flesh-eating form of pneumonia, researchers have warned. The USA300 strain is spreading outside hospitals into the general population Spreading rapidly among gay men in several major US cities, the bug can cause boils as large as tennis balls, blood poisoning or a necrotising condition which eats away at a person's lungs. The type of Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) was identified in gay men in...

A new, highly drug-resistant strain of MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, has moved outside hospitals and is now spreading among gay men, researchers reported Monday. ... In regards to San Francisco, the study found sexually active gay men are 13 times more likely to be infected than the general population.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A drug-resistant strain of potentially deadly bacteria has moved beyond the borders of U.S. hospitals and is being transmitted among gay men during sex, researchers said on Monday. They said methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, is beginning to appear outside hospitals in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles. Sexually active gay men in San Francisco are 13 times more likely to be infected than their heterosexual neighbors, the researchers reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine. "Once this reaches the general population, it will be truly unstoppable," said Binh Diep, a researcher at the...

Murtha's comments on 'surge' are a problem for House Democrats Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), one of the leading anti-war voices in the House Democratic Caucus, is back from a trip to Iraq and he now says the "surge is working." This could be a huge problem for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democratic leaders, who are blocking approval of the full $200 billion being sought by President Bush for combat operations in Iraq in 2008. Murtha's latest comments are also a stark reversal from what he said earlier in the year. The Pennsylvania Democrat, who chairs the powerful Defense...

M&S pyjamas' silver lining helps stop MRSA Last Updated: 2:39am GMT 29/11/2007 Pyjamas that have been designed to protect hospital patients from the MRSA superbug have gone on sale in Marks & Spencer. The £45 garment has silver thread woven into it, which tests show can reduce the spread of infections. The ongoing clinical trial's interim results are positive M&S is selling the "Sleepsafe" pyjamas, below, at 100 stores as part of a trial. Silver-laced nightwear has been tested in a handful of hospitals, but M&S has become the first retailer in Britain to stock the pyjamas. They are only...

Hospital Superbugs Now In Nursing Homes And Community ScienceDaily (Nov. 28, 2007) — Hospital superbugs that can break down antibiotics are so widespread throughout Europe that doctors increasingly have to use the few remaining drugs that they reserve for emergencies. Now these hospital superbug strains have spread to nursing homes and into the community in Ireland, raising fears of wider antibiotic resistance, scientists heard 28 November 2007at the Federation of Infection Societies Conference 2007. Doctors collected 732 samples from 22 Irish hospitals over the last ten years and found that 61% of them, 448 samples, tested positive for bacteria that...

Even metaphorical wars can have flesh-and-blood casualties, and hospitals around the country are now tending to the victims of one of our fiercest. It is not so much that we are “losing” this particular war; simple notions of victory and defeat dropped away some time ago. Rather, locked in a spiral of costly and controversial escalations, we may have lost sight of who the enemy actually is.

I'm asking the prayer warriors on this site to please say a prayer for my nephew, Alex. He's 7 and was just diagnosed last night with MRSA. They cleaned the spot out (on his little behind) and have begun anti-biotics and are waiting for the culture to come back before they begin a more aggressive treatment.

Some of the most aggressive antibiotic-resistant staph infections gain their advantage with a molecule that punctures the immune cells trying to fight off the bacteria, scientists have discovered. Understanding the role of this molecule in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) could lead to new therapies for the notoriously hard-to-treat, and sometimes fatal, skin infection. Staph bacteria are ubiquitous but aren't dangerous unless they seep into an open wound. Even then, antibiotics will usually stop the infection. But some strains of staph that infect hospital patients with weakened immune systems have become resistant to all standard antibiotics, including methicillin. Now, a newer...

Developing Kryptonite For Superbug ScienceDaily (Nov. 11, 2007) — University of Idaho researchers are crossing academic and geographical bounds to develop more effective defenses against Staphylococcus aureus bacteria and other deadly pathogens. One of the goals of that effort is to create much faster and more accurate identification of strains resistant to the antibiotic methicillin, formally known as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. Breakthrough detection technologies are already in hand in University of Idaho labs. Nanoelectronic biosensors at the university’s Center for Advanced Microelectronics and Biomolecular Research (CAMBR) recently have cut detection time for staph from the industry standard of...

When Prime Minister Gordon Brown addressed the Labour Party last month, he promised the cheering crowd that all hospitals would be "deep cleaned" to rid them of superbugs such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which are killing an estimated eight thousand hospital patients yearly. He also ordered doctors in the British National Health Service to replace their long-sleeved lab coats with freshly laundered short-sleeved or sleeveless scrubs to curb the spread of germs from patient to patient. Why aren't politicians in the U.S. pledging to clean up hospitals? New data in the Oct. 17 issue of the Journal of the...

Okay, my friends. For the last week or so, the media have gotten Americans all worked up into a froth about this "deadly new bacteria" called MRSA. My ER is now inundated with frantic phone calls from people who have no idea what they are looking at, or what the disease really is. One charming woman (who clearly smoked wayyyyyyyy too much) called amid the throes of a panic attack because she found a pimple and was convinced beyond all attempts to reason with her that she was "gonna die of Melissa." "Ah, you mean MRSA." I corrected the hyperventilating...

Cold war weaponry to tackle superbugs By Gary Cleland Last Updated: 5:47pm GMT 28/10/2007 Technology developed to protect Britain from biological weapons is being redeployed into hospitals to help destroy superbugs. Among the first hospital trusts to install the air disinfection units will be Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, where at least 90 people died from the bug Clostridium difficile. The machines, first developed at the British defence establishment Porton Down in the 1960s, have been approved by an NHS ethics committee after trials at hospitals in Sunderland, Manchester and Carlisle. Tests showed the machines are capable of killing...

An eastern Kentucky school district with one confirmed case of antibiotic-resistant staph infection plans to shut down all 23 of its schools Monday, affecting about 10,300 students, to disinfect the facilities. The project will involve disinfecting classrooms, restrooms, cafeterias, hallways, locker rooms, buses and even external areas such as playgrounds and sports fields, said Roger Wagner, superintendent of Pike County schools. "We're not closing schools because there's been a large number of breakouts, but as a preventive measure," Wagner said. One Pike County student was diagnosed with in September with MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The bacterial strain can be...

It has always been believed, but never proven that French clay can kill several varieties of bacteria that cause diseases. Today, a researcher at Arizona State University at Tempe is leading a study to show why certain minerals kill certain bacteria. French clay has been shown to kill Mycobacterium ulcerans, or M. Ulcerans, which is so epidemical in Africa. It also treats Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which is responsible for deadly infections that are difficult to treat. Furthermore, it has been known for thousands of years that people have used clay for healing wounds, helping indigestion, and killing intestinal worms....

Researchers said that a type of French clay can kill several disease-causing bacteria, including M. ulcerans, which is known as a "flesh-eating" bacteria, and the so-called super bug, MRSA. ~snip~