MRSA madness
![MRSA220207_400x379[1].jpg](http://trouble.philadelphiaweekly.com/archives/MRSA220207_400x379%5B1%5D.jpg)
All this hysteria over the "new superbug" is making me crazy. MRSA has been around forever -- a plague in prisons and jails. In Pennsylvania, MRSA is legion in prisons for all kinds of reasons, but you never see headlines about it. Why? Because no one cares about incarcerated people. If they get horrible, life-threatening staph infections, well, they probably deserve it. But if our children get it, Jesus help us! It's all over the news. I'm pissed off. And check out the first sentence of today's USA Today piece, which is entirely consistent with every other news item I've read or heard.
A killer bacteria known as MRSA has been a growing problem for years, particularly in hospitals and nursing homes.[Emphasis mine.]
And prisons! Prisons, you idiots!
Okay, I'll try to calm down now.
Comments
Wow, I didn't know that. The MRSA scare is here in Atlanta too along with CDC which always seems about 15 years behind on everything: http://www.ajc.com/health/content/metro/stories/2007/10/24/staph_1025.html
We've also got the treatment resistant tuberculosis scare here - 15 years ago an expert in Macon, Georgia said, "the biggest health crisis facing our nation is not HIV (which he dubbed a close 2nd) but antibiotic resistant Tuberculosis - 15 years ago, and suddenly its news. It's been going around psych hospitals, poor neighborhoods, and yes jails for 15 years. Oh la la.
Posted by: Sally | October 25, 2007 02:42 PM
I don't get it either. It's been around for about 10 years at least. I'm a nurse and it's nothing new to us.
Posted by: Em | October 26, 2007 01:02 AM
You're absolutely right. I'm sure that this has been a problem at Pennsylvania's Mahanoy State Correctional Facility, about 12 miles from where I grew up, for years, but five kids in Tamaqua, about seven miles from where I grew up, get it and all hell breaks loose. I would debate whether many people weren't aware that this has been an ongoing problem in the prison system, but there's no doubt in my mind that almost nobody cares.
Posted by: Josh | October 26, 2007 10:25 AM
MRSA used to be a problem for the elderly, people in hospitals, and prisons (because of the close quarters and tendency for injury and reduced health in inmates). But now, young and otherwise healthy people are getting MRSA without setting foot in nursing homes, hospitals or prisons, and the CDC does not know why. The MRSA that is a threat to school aged children and young adults is a sufficiently different strain from that which is found in hospitals, nursing homes, and prisons. It is not that the CDC is behind by 15 years (at least not in this case), but that this is an entirely new problem for which they can not isolate the cause. Check out this http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/magazine/16wwln-lede-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&oref=slogin
This is just one suggestion for the source of this new MRSA superbug problem, I don't know if it is right or not as it is just starting to be researched
Posted by: Alyson | March 24, 2008 06:00 PM