I just read an article on MSNBC.com that I thought was interesting. Just another reason to have safer sex.
"This superbug can cause life-threatening and disfiguring infections and can often only be treated with expensive, intravenous antibiotics.
It killed about 19,000 Americans in 2005, most of them in hospitals, according to a report published in October in the Journal of the American Medical Association."
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22665539/
"This superbug can cause life-threatening and disfiguring infections and can often only be treated with expensive, intravenous antibiotics.
It killed about 19,000 Americans in 2005, most of them in hospitals, according to a report published in October in the Journal of the American Medical Association."
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22665539/
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Phoenix
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Re: MRSA
Tue, January 22, 2008 - 8:30 PMcdc's response to the blatant homophobia in our us media:
www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/...8/t080116.htm
the day the articles came out, i was asked by 3 or 4 people about this--the chronicle's article was extra bad, but the wording of many of these is just not good. staph is everywhere. it has been and is now exceptionally virulent due to our overuse of antibiotics. while it's not any one person's fault our society is going into mass hysteria, i feel we should challenge it and stick with science.
cdc:
"MRSA is a common cause of skin infections throughout the United States. These infections occur in men, women, adults, children, and persons of all races and sexual orientations, and are known to be transmitted by close skin-to-skin contact. In this issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, Diep et al looked at isolates of MRSA - USA300 strains containing a particular plasmid associated with additional drug resistance. The paper shows that multidrug-resistant USA300 has emerged as an important source of disease among men with have sex with men in 2 geographically distinct communities.
The strains of MRSA described in the recent Annals of Internal Medicine have mostly been identified in certain groups of men who have sex with men (MSM), but have also been found in some persons who are not MSM. It is important to note that the groups of MSM in which these isolates have been described are not representative of all MSM, so conclusions can not be drawn about the prevalence of these strains among all MSM. The groups studied in this report may share other characteristics or behaviors that facilitate spread of MRSA, such as frequent skin-to-skin contact."
it goes on to talk about prevention and what not.
i realize this comes across as kind of hostile, but i assure you all (mainly nurse lisa) that that's NOT my intention, only that our society's hysteria about the castro being an epicenter of the new gay disease (see the chronicle article) really needs to be challenged.
sf chronicle article:
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi -
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Re: MRSA
Tue, January 22, 2008 - 9:07 PMI just wanted to take a moment to point out that I don't for a second believe that this is a strictly homosexual ailment. I've known that MRSA is a big problem for a while, but it never really occurred to me that it could be transmitted sexually. It makes sense, but for some reason I never put the two together. I wanted to raise awareness, thats all. That just happened to be the article I read today.....I know that it wasn't particularly responsible researching on my part. Thank you for providing a more reputable article. -
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Re: MRSA
Wed, January 23, 2008 - 6:59 AMi would hardly call the cdc reputable, the just point out in more straightforward terms the extent of the disease....it's TRUE a more virulent form has come up, but it still affects everyone. i had a similar reaction in that, as much sense as it makes now (hindsight is 20/20?), it's kind of odd to think of it as an std. i've been meaning to get a copy of the actual articles that discuss all that.
additionally, there is a community forum (including one of the docs that wrote the primary research) coming up next week.
Wednesday, January 30 7 – 9pm
Where: The LGBT Community Center Ceremonial Room, (4th floor)
1800 Market Street SF, CA 94103
Featured Panel:
Erica Pan (Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, SF DPH)
Rick Loftus, MD (Local Physician & Community Advocate)
Chip Chambers, MD (Co-author of recent report on MRSAin the Annals of Internal Medicine)
Other Community Health Advocates
A facilitated discussion among community members, doctors, the Department of Public Health, and community health advocates on MRSA / Staph Infections.
- How concerned should you be about MRSA?
- What are the signs and symptoms?
- What can you do to prevent getting it or passing it on?
- What are the City and Department of Public Health plans to address this?
- How should media and advocates respond to health issues to not
pathologize gay men's sexuality?
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Re: MRSA
Fri, March 21, 2008 - 10:06 PMI have to say, when I saw that article the chronicle wrote, I had such a strong reaction. I did not even read it, the title alone made me see red!!
It just reminded me of the early days of HIV/AIDS, where the media kept saying it was a gay issue. there was alot of gay bashing back then, because of it. The media putting so much fear out there. Like Americans are not super parnoid already!
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Re: MRSA
Thu, January 24, 2008 - 10:56 AMif it's spread through skin to skin contact, how does safer sex do anything to help? I mean, this is something you could get from shaking hands with an infected person. -
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Re: MRSA
Fri, January 25, 2008 - 12:08 PMyou're absolutely right--safer sex won't do much. it wont protect you from staph in the same manner it doesn't do much for hsv/hpv. it only protects the areas that are covered. good hand hygiene is important since that's the main form of contact with folks, but we have to take a step back and balance our need for cleanliness and our need to be at ease psychologically. you can spend all your waking moments stressing about it--or not. there comes a point when it's really not worth stressing so much.
or you could live in a bubble impermeable to staph and every other infectious agent...
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Re: MRSA
Sun, January 27, 2008 - 3:48 PMFrom what I've read washing with basic soap and water as soon as possible after sexual contact minimizes the risk of contracting an MRSA infection... -
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Re: MRSA
Tue, January 29, 2008 - 8:57 PMso taking a shower together afterwards... sounds good to me -
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Re: MRSA
Tue, January 29, 2008 - 10:13 PMYeah so I'm guessing a predilection for having anonymous sex in dark places with no facilities is really what makes certain individuals more likely to come down with a full-blown staph infection.
Probably more gay men find themselves in this situation than straights, so I'm guessing this might be the intervening variable that the media is kind of sidestepping. My take is that certainly most gay men do not participate in these activities, but way more gay men than straights do.
It would have been nice if the researchers would have said, "13 times more likely, but this still means that only one in [some very large number] are likely to be infected." That would have made everyone a little happier. -
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Re: MRSA
Wed, January 30, 2008 - 6:45 AMwhile i haven't had time to read the primary research, i tend to blame people like the chronicle in these instances...well, the chronicle isn't a people....but the author (who stood by what he wrote at a form last week)...they just tend to sensationalize things, as it sells more. gay men being 13 times more likely to be infected can mean many things, and must be taken in the context it was said in the original paper. like most of us probably are, i'm a little too bogged down with life right now. i'll try and find it when i go to work friday or saturday and let y'all know.
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Re: MRSA
Fri, February 1, 2008 - 9:09 PMDammit,
Anonymous sex in a dark doorway has always been a fantasy of mine. I guess I will have to start carrying a bottle of hand-sanitizer just so I don't have to cross it off the "possible to fulfill" list.
Its kinda scary, we touch all kinds of things that are touched by hundreds of others: shopping carts, coins, elevator buttons. I think this is one bit of medical hype that I am just going to have to refuse to worry about and leave up to fate. There is no way I am going to walk around being afraid to shake hands and using a hanky to turn a door handle. To tell you the truth, I wonder how much trying to stay clean could actually increase your risk either by removing protective fauna and oils on your skin or by causing dryness or chaffing which could provide an easy entry into your system.
There is real truth to the fact that we are creating a society that is more vulnerable to disease than our ancestors were because we have isolated ourselves from infection with medication (the increase in allergies comes to mind, many of which can be caused be growing up in too clean of an environment).
Without our contact lenses & flu shots & facial cleansers & ibuprofin & vaccinations & dental floss & antibiotics & pedicures ... we'd be lucky to reach 40! But it really is inevitable that SOME bug SOMEWHERE is gonna take advantage of our population density and mobile culture to conquer the world. Luckily, one trait of deadly viruses and bacteria is that the deadliness of them decreases with with the population of their targets. If they kill before being passed on ... they don't get passed on.
My apologies. I love being morbid! -
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Re: MRSA
Fri, February 1, 2008 - 9:18 PMJust remember, alcohol-based hand sanitizer needs about a minute of vigorous scrubbing to do its job. A few perfunctory swipes just doesn't come close to soap and hot water. -
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Re: MRSA
Mon, February 4, 2008 - 6:54 PMOkay, so in reality, I'm probably at more risk than a lot of people who are not in the health care field. I've been exposed to it numerous times, and to my knowledge, am not colonized with MRSA.
I remember, (only about 5 years ago), as an RN in the hospital, having patients who were MRSA positive. We had to take MRSA "precautions," which included extra SUPER care to wash our hands IMMEDIATELY after leaving an MRSA-infected patient's room. Patients with MRSA were not allowed to share rooms with other people. They were handled differently than other patients. Its been really interesting to see how this bacterial colonization/infection has changed over the years....Now it seems a lot more people have it. Of course, I don't work in critical care anymore, but I see MRSA a lot in primary care. As a result, I tend to only prescribe medications for soft tissue infections that MRSA is susceptible to, because the other ones simply won't work.
At any rate, I just wanted to raise public awareness of it, because I think its a public health issue. Its one (of the many) reasons I wash my hands 800 times a day. It also adds to my reasons for safer sex. Its okay if you disagree with me.
Here's another article of interest to me:
jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/conte...90/22/2976 -
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Re: MRSA
Mon, February 4, 2008 - 11:10 PMThanks Nurse Lisa.
I'm hoping that I'll be at UCSF here working pretty soon (trying for the MEPN program as an ACNP), and I've given a lot of consideration to working with patients who are acutely ill with MRSA.
We see it very irregularly at the primary care clinic I work at here in Sac, partially because it's a Planned Parenthood. I do not know what the stats are for MRSA here.
I'm with you on the washing the hands constantly. And safer sex.
Thank you for the JAMA article.
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Re: MRSA
Tue, February 5, 2008 - 10:09 PMnurse lisa,
i hope you know that i certainly didn't mean for my common man's "ignorance is bliss" part of my opinion to minimize the risk that heath care workers are exposed to. from what i remember , it was infected doctors, nurses and dentists that really brought the risks of fluid to fluid transfer of HIV to the forefront because of their exposure rates.
luv ya, k -
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This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.
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Re: MRSA
Wed, February 6, 2008 - 2:00 PMyou were always dirty...
but on the outside you still sparkle ;)
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Re: MRSA
Wed, February 6, 2008 - 1:27 PMSpartca wrote:
Yeah so I'm guessing a predilection for having anonymous sex in dark places with no facilities is really what makes certain individuals more likely to come down with a full-blown staph infection.
well, I am not a gay man, I've never had anonymous sex let alone anonymous sex in dark places with no facilities, and I've had MRSA. Luckily it cleared on its own, without antibiotics (lancing it, but they cultured it just to make sure). FOUR of my straight friends have gotten it.
Staph is everywhere. You go to a gym? sit down in the hot, sweaty locker room? It's on you. It breeds there.
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