Free Republic

LONDON - When James Wollacott badly wrenched his knee while jumping on a trampoline in the back garden of his house, the healthy, athletic 20-year-old imagined a quick operation and a swift recuperation. Instead, he spent three months in the hospital last year, bedridden and gravely ill, battling high fevers and a merciless staph infection. The infection was M.R.S.A., short for methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, known as the "superbug,'' and Mr. Wollacott picked it up when doctors inserted in his kneecap four titanium pins. More than a year after his accident, Mr. Wollacott, who lives in Essex, still has trouble walking,...

Reuters A drug-resistant "superbug" found in hospitals has a close cousin that is affecting athletes, prisoners and small children in growing numbers across the United States, disease experts said yesterday. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA can become fatal if not treated with the right antibiotics, said Daniel B. Jernigan of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "MRSA is showing up in places it had never been seen before -- as a predominant cause of skin disease among children in some regions of the country, as clusters of abscesses among sports participants, as the most common cause of skin infections...

Medical experts say staphylococcus aureus, cause of some of the most troublesome infections to afflict man, has become resistant to the antibiotic of last resort, vancomycin. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control announced the first confirmed case of vancomycin-resistant staph aureus -- known in the medical world as VRSA -- found last month in a Michigan man. "The genie is out of the bottle," Dr. Donald Low, microbiologist-in-chief at Mount Sinai Hospital, says of the confirmation. "It's ominous." The experts know the Michigan case is solid proof they will soon have to deal with their nightmare scenario -- common staph...