Dr Phil -
Thank you for doing this show, knowledge is power!! My family struggles with MRSA and have for a couple of years now. I was extremely frustrated with everyone I tried to contact about the seriousness of this problem. I often felt very alone, people minimized the seriousness of what I was dealing with, as my twin girls battled recurrent sores, I had to educate myself. Now I do my best to be informative to others.
I would like to suggest for everyone to call, write, e-mail,do what ever it takes to raise awareness at a government level. I suggest everyone push for legislation to pass a bill forcing all hospitals to post their rates of hospital acquired infections. We a consumers who pay for medical services, should be able to make an educated decision, based on their infection rate wether or not to recieve services their or find a hospital with a cleaner record. A mom back east passed such a bill, I think it would be wise for the rest of the nation to pass such legislation as well. Let the public know where and how to get such information, and not put their children at risk. I took my daughter in for a simple ingrown toenail and she left with MRSA! had I been more informed I could have made different choices for services. It is time hospitals be accountable and if they start losing money because they dont have patients walk in the front doors they will start taking more precautions.
I also commend medicaid and other insurance companies for telling hospitals they will NOT pay for HA-MRSA expenses. I think hospitals have been making money hand over fist, and there for dont have incentive to clean up, and be proactive in prevention of MRSA. On average a person who goes in for a surgery or other procedure and contracts MRSA stay an average of 8-10 days longer and costs more than 40,000.00 more in treating it. When my daughters came down with MRSA we were uninsured. The level of service was shameful. They made me hold her down and assist in lancing, and debriding, and packing their abcesses, I wanted them to administer IV antibiotics and they would not, she was septic with a fever, lethargic and sicker than I had ever seen, they gave her on dose of oral antibiotics, told me to change the packing and dressing, and gave me NO supplies to do so, and hurriedly released us with a perscription, when I said I was unsure if I could afford to fill the perscription they told me that was not their concern. This same hospital had treated my family incredibly different when we have had health insurance sending us away equiped to deal with what ever we had been there for treatment for.
Schools also should have guidelines in place, or protocol to deal with MRSA cases. To send a child home with non-lifethreatening lice or chicken pox, but allow children with abcesses oozing infectious fluids is crazy. We need to rethink this.
I live in a community with a high meth rate. The cases of MRSA are extremely high in Meth users because of "picking" , Your children could be exposed to MRSA from the handle of a shopping cart that a Meth user had just used, or from a table at McDonalds that had been contaminated, or because they attend school with a child who lives in a home where their is Meth use. The effects of drug use in your community and the "war on drugs" we all hear about becomes very real, when you factor the risks and impact on you and your family. Get involved to help fight community issues that you may think dont effect you. Often at a second glance you may discover they have a very real threat to your family you try soo hard to keep safe.
There is a very high rate of MRSA in our prisons, what is being done to track that?therefor certain races, age groups, and demographics are more likely to encounter it, particularly young black men, what is being done to inform and protect them. The government has made huge campaigns for Aids awareness, MRSA is killing at a faster rate than AIDS yet I dont see MRSA education campaigns. I think the numbers are higher than what they estimate simply because of the response I got from the CDC that because MRSA isnt a "disease" they werent tracking it, only recently have they begun to do so.
MRSA does not care about your age, race, or income it does not discriminate anyone can get it. The sad thing is, its not even about a lifestyle choice( although certain lifestyles increase the risk of infection) you can innocently, thru no fault of your own, fall victim to MRSA.
I was on the Oprah show for a embarressing question for Dr Oz, it was a fun exciting experiance, but the whole time I really wanted to address the Questions I have in regards to MRSA. I have even written her about doing a show like this to let the public get the information it needs. Thank you for doing this show it is just the tip of the MRSA iceberg. Below is a copy of the letter I sent to my govenor and the CDC and their reply to me. THANK YOU FOR DOING THIS SHOW DR. PHIL!!!
To Whom it May concern;
I am interested in getting some awnsers to questions I have about the dramatic increase in MRSA infection in Yamhill county and when and if the CDC is or will start taking note of this. My questions arose yet again when I was hugging a dear friend of mine yesterday after she had told me she found her niece dead in her apartment, looking as though she had just laid down and died, all her toxicology reports came back clean, the only evident cause for her death pointed to the STAPH infection she was being treated for by the Virginia Garcia clinic.
My 9 year old Twin daughters came down with a bad case of MRSA that required a trip to the emergency room and a long recovery. I researched as much as I could about this virulant strand of staph and how it is spread as I began to wonder were my children aquired it. Could they have picked it up at the Grand Ronde Health and Wellness Center? as the nurses said they had huge numbers of cases of it, My daughters had been treated there for minor ingrown toenails and shortly after came down with MRSA. I spoke to their principle about keeping my girls out of school untill their abcesses ruptured and all signs of contagious drainage was gone and he said that wasnt nessesary that they had children there all the time with this type of thing!! Could my children have picked it up at school from another child who had it? I will never look at a simple cut on my child the same again, not living in my community where every where I seem to look is teaming with cases of this resistant staph and everyone plays it down to be not soo serious...I KNOW BETTER!
This past month a friend of mines husband came down with what he thought was an "ingrown hair" which turned out to be a MRSA abcess he went to the emergency room here in McMinnville and was rushed into surgery and spent 5 days in the hospital. The nurses and staff didnt want to touch him often having him or his wife change his packing and dressings himself, you cant tell me there isnt a serious concern about the severity of this MRSA stuff.
I contacted my local CDC when my girls had it and they said they dont moniter it because it is a bacteria and not a "disease" , well if it is happening at high rate and people are dying who if not the CDC will start noticing and make the public aware? I have heard that the McMinnville jail has a huge problem with it, is this true? does the high meth rate in our community play a part in this community having higher incidence, what is McMinnville hospitials HA-MRSA rate? does the CDC monitor that? where could this information be found? I would be interested in bringing a bill befor the state to require hospitals to post there rate of hospital aquired infections so we as consumers can make educated choices on what hospital has a reputation of being clean, and which ones have a problem controling thier spread of infections. There was a mother back east who did the same thing, and I think more states would be taking a proactive step in public health by holding our hospitals and healthcare to a higher standard to help control the spread of these nasty infections.
Any awnsers, or information you have would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time. I am truly concerned about this issue and would like to know what the CDC and my local and state government are doing about it.
Sincerely,
Michele Johnson
June 18, 2007
Dear Ms. Johnson,
Today I received the email you sent to the Oregon Acute and Communicable Disease Prevention Program regarding methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). I will try to answer your questions as completely as possible and I apologize if the information is a duplicate of what you may have already found through your research.
S. aureus
is a common bacterium that has been known to cause a range of diseases. Skin and soft tissue infections (such as the wound infections and skin abscesses that you mentioned) comprise roughly 95% of all S. aureus infections and S. aureus is one of the number one causes of all such infections. Rarely, S. aureus can cause more serious disease, such as pneumonia, bloodstream or other invasive infection, or toxic shock syndrome. MRSA is used to describe S. aureus infections due to bacteria that are resistant to methicillin. However, the disease profiles between methicillin-resistant and -sensitive strains are largely similar and cases of disease and outbreaks have been seen with both.
Until recently, the risk of acquiring an infection due to MRSA had largely been highest in the hospital setting or among individuals with frequent exposure to the health care setting. As you correctly noted, though, community-acquired MRSA has been seen in an increasing proportion of all
S. aureus infections in recent years. This has not been limited to any specific county: it has been observed throughout Oregon and, indeed, the country. S. aureus carried without symptoms of disease can be found on the skin or in the nose of 30-40% of the population at any one time and is spread from person to person through direct contact. MRSA, although carried at a lower rate, is also present among individuals in the community, with or without disease, and is spread in much the same manner. Therefore, the source of any particular infection is most often unknown.
S. aureus
is not a reportable infection in the state of Oregon. Therefore, most individual cases of disease are not routinely investigated by the local or state health departments. However, outbreaks of any disease (including MRSA) occurring in a particular setting are reportable by law and are thoroughly investigated by local and/or state health departments. Additionally, Oregon does track invasive MRSA infections occurring in the Portland area (Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington Counties) and is one of only ten states funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to conduct this special surveillance project. While not
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covering all counties or types of infections occurring in the state, this project allows us to get a more accurate idea of the burden and trends in MRSA disease. Other public health activities at the local and state level are focused on providing education to individuals, health care providers, and institutions on appropriate steps each can take to prevent MRSA transmission. Prevention guidelines, additional information about MRSA, and a description of – and statistics from – the MRSA surveillance project in Oregon, may be found at our website: http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/acd/diseases/mrsa/mrsa.shtml.
In addressing your last concern, we currently do not collect information on the number of hospital-acquired MRSA infections in specific facilities. For general information about rates of infection (without facility names), you may consult the CDC website for healthcare-associated infections surveillance at www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dhqp/surveillance.html. If you have a question regarding a particular facility, you may try calling the infection control department at that facility. Finally, there is currently a bill in the Ways & Means Committee of the Oregon Legislature that, if enacted, would require public reporting of healthcare-associated infections beginning January 1, 2009. You are encouraged to contact Sen. Kurt Schrader or Rep. Mary Nolan, co-chairs of the Ways & Means Committee, to obtain the current status of that bill or to voice your opinion.
I hope you will find the above information, including the web resources, useful. You may call the Acute and Communicable Disease Prevention Program at 971.673.1111 or may email me (Mark.Schmidt@state.or.us) if you have further questions.
Regards,
Mark Schmidt, MPH
ABCs Epidemiologist
Public Health Division
Oregon Department of Human Services
800 NE Oregon St, Suite 772
Portland, OR 97232
Could a grave danger be lurking in your home? If you believe the headlines, you know that catching the Superbug can have deadly consequences, but should you be concerned? How can you spot the danger, and what can you do to stay safe? Dr. Phil gets to the bottom of these questions and others. Melissa's son, Mark, was just 13 when he went to the hospital and wound up with MRSA, also known as the Superbug. Learn about Melissa’s tragic loss and why she thinks her son’s death could have been prevented. Then, 19-year-old Stephanie has been battling the Superbug for almost a year. Get a firsthand account of her experience with the disease, and find out what advice her doctor gave her that has Dr. Phil shocked and concerned. Even doctors aren’t immune to the Superbug. Dr. Drew O’Neal had an accident while on vacation, and what happened next changed his life forever. He shares his valuable insights as both doctor and patient. Plus, two years ago, Glen was your average sophomore playing on his high school football team -- until he contracted the Superbug right from the team’s locker room. Find out what important lessons he learned that could help protect you and your children from the disease. And renowned pediatrician Dr. Jim Sears weighs in with the latest information and shows off products to keep on hand that could save your life. Join the discussion.
