Lots of doctors don’t clean them between appointments
MRSA
Let There Be Light: Narrow Spectrum UV May Lower Risk of MRSA in Hospitals
Hospitals are places of healing, but each year about 200,000 to 300,000 patients pick up infections in their surgical wounds, making them 60% more likely to spend time in the ICU than infection-free patients, and contributing to …
Gloves and Gowns Don’t Stop Spread of All Infections in Hospitals
Bacterial infections can imperil the fragile patients at hospitals‘ intensive care units. And a new study reveals an unlikely spreader: the health care workers who treat them. The standard sterile hospital garb typically thought to prevent infections isn’t helping.
Study: H1N1 Can Be Deadly Even for Healthy Kids
Flu prevention is important for everyone, but here’s another reason to make sure to get vaccinated: in a study of childhood flu deaths from the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, researchers found that otherwise healthy kids can succumb to …
Bacteria Show Up in Hospital Rooms, Again
We get it — hospitals are crawling with germs. If it’s not your cell phone, the doctor’s coat or even the hands-free water faucet, then it’s the privacy curtain around the bed that’s tainted with unwanted bacteria.
MRSA Is on the Rise Among Children: Could Antibiotics Be to Blame?
Severe skin infections are increasing among children and becoming one of the most common reasons for hospitalization, a new study finds.
Coffee and Tea Drinkers May Be Less Susceptible to MRSA
Coffee and tea drinkers could be at lower risk of a developing a deadly drug-resistant staph infection, new research suggests.
Watch Out for the Cows. They Might Be Carrying a New Strain of MRSA
The medical news this week has been dominated by the possible carcinogenicity of cell phones and the virulent E. coli outbreak in Europe. But I hope your closet of fear isn’t full yet — I’ve got one more bit of medical worry to …
Thought Bedbugs Were Bad? Try Bedbugs With MRSA
(Updated) The one bright side to having bedbugs — if you wanted to be optimistic about it — has always been that at least the tormenting critters didn’t transmit disease. But now researchers in Vancouver report that they’ve …
Do I Have MRSA? FDA Approves Superbug Diagnostic Test
A newly approved diagnostic test can rapidly identify whether a patient’s Staphylococcus aureus infection is resistant to commonly prescribed antibiotics.
Hand Sanitizers That Prevent MRSA? Not So Fast
(Updated) On Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it had sent warning letters to four makers of hand sanitizing products that claim to prevent infection from methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA.
What’s Lurking in Your Meat and Poultry? Probably Staph
It’s a kitchen credo that you should wash your hands and utensils thoroughly, especially after they’ve touched raw meat or poultry, which may contain a host of bacteria — salmonella, listeria, E. coli — that can make you …