On Wed, 19 Oct 1994 hochbeam at esvx12.es.dupont.com wrote:
>> By the way, I'm surprised I haven't heard more in this newsgroup
> about the nasty problems of multiple-resistant organisms. The
> popular press and newsy journals are full of them. Anyone have
> any "war stories" in this area?
>An anti-war story then: when the Newsweek article came out, it cited a
40% incidence of vanc resistant enterococci, and garbled the MRSA numbers
as well. The real numbers are much much lower. Exactly how much lower,
who knows? Despite being a 800+ bed teaching hospital we have yet to see
a VRE other than a certification unknown. Newseek did not correct its
inflammatory statistics.
The other big bug, MDR TB has stayed restricted to fla and NYC.
The hullabaloo is overblown. We are not as far ahead of the bugs as we
once were, but we are not about to enter a "new era" without antibiotics.
It is hard to say if this is just media sensationalism, or if the
pharmaceutical industry, worried about medical reform, is feeding them
numbers to incite hysteria supportive of their industry.
Clealy someone is playing chicken little here.
Bob Morrell
