7 Infected, 2 Dead After 'Superbug' Outbreak at Hospital

[GreenGreen]

LOS ANGELES - Contaminated medical instruments are suspected in a "superbug" outbreak at a Los Angeles hospital that has infected at least seven patients, two of whom died. More than 170 others may have been exposed to the antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

http://www.newsday.com/news/health/...t-ronald-reagan-ucla-medical-center-1.9953635

I'm sure, that only fools and those with death wishes go to LA nowadays. Biased comment deleted. The region is really very dangerous.

 

[Ancalagon44]

Have they developed a taste for human flesh yet?

 

[pcgeek11]

That is what happens when you leave the dang door open.

 

[Brainonska511]

It's not a surprise - antibiotic resistant bacteria, or "superbugs", of the more than 2 million people infected per year, these infections kill upwards of 23,000 people a year in the United States, costing us $20 billion in direct costs and $35 billion in indirect economic costs (CDC) http://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/

It should really drive home the need to restrict the use of antibiotics - don't allow willy-nilly prescriptions, don't allow their wide-spread use as prophylactics and growth-enhancers in animals (low-level exposure helps amplify antibiotic resistance genes in bacterial populations), get other countries to stop allowing antibiotics to be given over the counter. For instance, in India, many TB cases are resistant to almost all but the most powerful antibiotics.
---

As for what appears to be a slight at the city of LA for whatever reason, this is a wide-spread problem that isn't due to immigrants or a dirty city or whatever fantasies the OP had in mind. Bacteria are everywhere, they live on our skin, in our guts, on surfaces, etc... It's when they get into the wrong places that they start to cause problems.

 

[Jaskalas]

Antibiotic R&D might be a task for a government funded lab, if no one else is willing to do it. Without effective antibiotics, medicine would regress to 19th century overnight. Random, chance, encounters with the wrong bacteria would once again be deadly. Standard medical procedures would have high mortality rates.

Countless people will die if these "superbugs" outpace Antibiotics.

 

[rpanic]

It was spread from a dirty endoscopes over a few months.

 

[TheVrolok]

And yet in every ATOT doctor thread come all the people who think doctors should stfu and just give them the antibiotic they want.

 

[Brainonska511]

And yet in every ATOT doctor thread come all the people who think doctors should stfu and just give them the antibiotic they want.

Well, according to some of the brilliant posters here, doctors are useless. You can just google everything nowadays to figure out what's wrong with you.

 

[Brainonska511]

Antibiotic R&D might be a task for a government funded lab, if no one else is willing to do it. Without effective antibiotics, medicine would regress to 19th century overnight. Random, chance, encounters with the wrong bacteria would once again be deadly. Standard medical procedures would have high mortality rates.

Countless people will die if these "superbugs" outpace Antibiotics.

It is certainly a fairly large concern in the biomedical community, and there is active research in this department. However, another line of research that is just as important though is to understand the many mechanisms of resistance of these bacteria. From my own experience in this area, you could imagine that antibiotics could be given in a cocktail-like form: one part to simply inhibit the mechanism of resistance (sometimes this will be feasible, like in the case of efflux pumps, which are like vacuum cleaners for the cell - simply pumping antibiotics out, so they can't be toxic to the bacteria) and the other being the antibiotic.

Another component to understanding resistance mechanisms would be that we could find ways chemically modify our existing antibiotic libraries to get around these resistance mechanisms.

Unfortunately, it's always going to be a battle against evolution. These bacteria have been under selective pressure for eons as they fight against each other (and other single-celled organisms) with these antibiotics, and they'll continue to evolve when there is selective pressure in their environment.

 

[soccerballtux]

It's not a surprise - antibiotic resistant bacteria, or "superbugs", of the more than 2 million people infected per year, these infections kill upwards of 23,000 people a year in the United States, costing us $20 billion in direct costs and $35 billion in indirect economic costs (CDC) http://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/

It should really drive home the need to restrict the use of antibiotics - don't allow willy-nilly prescriptions, don't allow their wide-spread use as prophylactics and growth-enhancers in animals (low-level exposure helps amplify antibiotic resistance genes in bacterial populations), get other countries to stop allowing antibiotics to be given over the counter. For instance, in India, many TB cases are resistant to almost all but the most powerful antibiotics.
---

As for what appears to be a slight at the city of LA for whatever reason, this is a wide-spread problem that isn't due to immigrants or a dirty city or whatever fantasies the OP had in mind. Bacteria are everywhere, they live on our skin, in our guts, on surfaces, etc... It's when they get into the wrong places that they start to cause problems.

I don't have any source for you but I'm pretty sure there's a study or two about removing their use from bovine milk production and basically everything returned to normal within a year or two. In other words these strong bacterias REQUIRE the constant assault of prevalent antibiotics to retain their virulence? bacterience.

Which is why nobody really cares too much about it. When it becomes a serious problem, we'll do something about it.

 

[Brainonska511]

I don't have any source for you but I'm pretty sure there's a study or two about removing their use from bovine milk production and basically everything returned to normal within a year or two. In other words these strong bacterias REQUIRE the constant assault of prevalent antibiotics to retain their virulence? bacterience.

Which is why nobody really cares too much about it. When it becomes a serious problem, we'll do something about it.

They don't "require" constant exposure, it's just that constant, low-level (sub-lethal) exposure puts selective pressure on the bacterial population. The resistant ones will out-compete the non-resistant part of the population.

And it's not just in bovine milk production. They are used in animal feed of a lot of other animals. It was found that animals fed antibiotics at a sub-clinical dosage would grow larger, faster. The side effect being, all this usage provides the low-level exposure to the animals' bacterial populations, which can spread to the people working with the animals. Then it's seemingly just a matter of time before a benign bacteria (when on your skin) ends up in causing a serious infection.

It's important science, but it's hard to communicate value to the general population. There aren't flashy pictures (like the Hubble telescope can provide) and the threat from antibiotic resistant bacteria seems relatively existential to the public at large. I think there is a huge disconnect in communication between the scientific community and the public and a deep misunderstanding of how science is done and how long it can take.

 

[Subyman]

Ebola and measles are old news in the media, so know we have a "SUPERBUG!!!" to be afraid of.

 

[Brainonska511]

Ebola and measles are old news in the media, so know we have a "SUPERBUG!!!" to be afraid of.

Antibiotic resistant bacterial infections (aka Superbugs) have been in and out of the headlines for at least the last 15 years (I wrote a little research paper on it back in 2003 for my HS freshman biology class), along with stories about them in other non-newspaper outlets, like "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" and "60 Minutes". I'd say that it is hardly a new issue to frighten people.

But the stories should be framed in a way of: this is why we need to continue to publicly funding research in this country.

 

[SirStev0]

We've seen about 8 or 9 cases of CRE, almost all Kleb. We had a run where the only option were drugs still waiting on FDA approval. Desperate times.

 

[Spungo]

Ebola and measles are old news in the media, so know we have a "SUPERBUG!!!" to be afraid of.

Remember when HIV was going to kill us all? Those were good times. I was convinced it was all over, so I had unprotected sex with hundreds of men and shared needles with everyone.

 

[PottedMeat]

UCLA said Wednesday that the infections may have been transmitted through two endoscopes used to diagnose and treat pancreatic and bile-duct problems.

An endoscope is an instrument that is inserted into the body to enable a doctor to view an organ or cavity. It typically consists of a thin, flexible tube with a light and a lens or miniature camera.

sterilize the handle, but stuff with that many nooks and crannies that enter the body should be disposable

 

[ThinClient]

It was spread from a dirty endoscopes over a few months.

D:

Does this mean that they have Super Anus Aids?!

 

[Jeff7]

...
I think there is a huge disconnect in communication between the scientific community and the public and a deep misunderstanding of how science is done and how long it can take.

No doubt there. "Huge disconnect" is an immense understatement, and it's not just the public, it's also elected officials.
I get the idea that a lot of public "understanding" of science comes from prime time dramas or other shows. How science works:

- Scientists are childlike, incompetent, arrogant, inherently uncaring, and dangerous.

or

- One really smart person figures out the problem and creates a drug in a few hours. After the drug is administered, within several seconds there are signs that it's working. Then over the next day, they synthesize a few million doses and distribute them for free, and the problem is solved forever.


People presumably believe this stuff because TV writers surely research everything to make it as realistic as possible, and they don't just pull things out of their asses only because they have to fill a timeslot with something that's capable of keeping a TV audience fixated on that channel so that they will watch product placement and commercials.



People also don't believe things unless they see it.

I can't always use math at work to demonstrate that something is going to fail. Management, Sales, and Marketing have to see a thing fail before they'll believe it. Silly fantasies like calculated stresses versus yield strength of a material don't mean anything. They're just numbers.
They have to see that a stress that's calculated to be 7.4x the ultimate tensile strength of a material will in fact break it, or that trying to dissipate 8 watts from a device rated for 1 watt is going to lead to a failure, or that a 4000 watt heater element that typically runs at a 1% duty cycle inside of an insulated environmental chamber is adding a very negligible amount of money to the electric bill.

 

[HumblePie]

Antibiotics may be on the way out anyhow. NPR had a piece of new research into a new type of antibiotic. They found a new bacteria type with a compound that is very anti biotic in nature with the potential to never have the germs it attacks to form a resistance.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/201...-soil-bacteria-may-help-fight-dangerous-germs

Here is the piece on it. Sounds very intriguing indeed if the human trials are a success.

 

[Jaskalas]

Sounds promising... but we need to make sure it comes to market if it keeps passing its trials.

 

[Slew Foot]

sterilize the handle, but stuff with that many nooks and crannies that enter the body should be disposable

Good in theory until you realize that an ERCP scope costs up to $100000.

Well, according to some of the brilliant posters here, doctors are useless. You can just google everything nowadays to figure out what's wrong with you.

If those people never saw a doctor, they never would have gotten the superbug

 

[blake0812]

better buy guns, fellas. We're going innawoods