The Superbug or How washing your hands can save your life.

Discussion in 'SHH Community Forum' started by SoulManX, Nov 2, 2007.

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  1. SoulManX

    SoulManX The Inspector!

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    How MRSA Works

    As if you didn't have enough to worry about, now there's the superbug to contend with. No, it's not a giant mantis bent on world conquest. The superbug is a bacterium with a familiar name -- staph. And although this tiny invader doesn't possess 8-foot-long pincers like a giant mantis, it's just as deadly. What's worse, although we could probably take down a giant mantis with bullets -- or possibly rockets -- the superbug becomes harder to kill with each passing day.

    It's also getting easier for the bug to kill us. In 2005, 19,000 people died from MRSA infections in the United States, and an average of 6.3 out of every 100,000 infections resulted in death [source: JAMA]. That's more than the number of people who died of AIDS complications in the same year. In the United Kingdom, cases of MRSA increased from 210 cases in 1993 to 5,300 in 2002 [source: University of Warwick].


    Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA (the superbug), was first noticed by physicians in the 1970s. The medical establishment kept an eye on the bug but found it could be killed by a round or two of traditional antibiotics. However, things have changed. Because of improperly taken prescriptions, as well as the presence of antibiotics in our food and water, this staph bug mutated and evolved into the superbug. Due to survival of the fittest, those strains that had lived through an assault of antibiotics went on to breed replicas of themselves. This natural selection eventually led to staph strains that are resistant to these antibodies.


    Natural selection is a process of evolution by which those members of a species who live through catastrophe are thought to possess traits that help them survive. Through the survival of those members, these traits -- such as resistance to a disease -- pass from generation to generation. It's the reason you have an opposable thumb: As apes diverged genetically from Old World monkeys 6 to 8 million years ago, one of the results was the opposable thumb. As the thumb showed itself as a "handy" trait, it developed along with the primate family, which includes humans. The results are the human-dominated world we live in today -- thanks, in part, to our opposable thumbs.


    The process of natural selection can takes tens (and in some cases, hundreds) of thousands of years to take place in humans. But this isn't the case for MRSA and some other bugs. As the Mayo Clinic put it, MRSA and other bacteria "live on an evolutionary fast track" [source: Mayo Clinic]. Rather than taking thousands of years to develop into their current lethal strain, MRSA has evolved -- and spread -- in mere decades. In 1974, MRSA infections made up two percent of all staph infections. By 2004, MRSA accounted for 63 percent [source: CDC]. What's worse is that this bug has been shown to be fatal in some cases, especially when it remains untreated.


    One of the reasons for this is the bacteria's rapidly developing resistance to antibiotics. As its name implies, it's been resistant to Methicillin -- a penicillin-based antibiotic -- for some time now. But it's also showing resistance to other antibiotics, as well, and that has some physicians worried. MRSA can also be easily transferred from person to person, and two types of the bug have developed based on the setting where infection takes place.
    So what exactly is this superbug, and just how do we fight it? In this article, we'll look at MRSA, and what -- if anything -- we can do to defeat it.



    More at the site...



    http://health.howstuffworks.com/mrsa.htm
     
    #1 SoulManX, Nov 2, 2007
  2. Wilhelm-Scream

    Wilhelm-Scream Registered

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    Whoa, this was just a story on the front page of the paper here.
    I thought it was funny because it said,
    "New Alarm about Killer Bug!
    Patient dies in blablabla hospital!
    Also, blabla highschool gym shut down, GAME CANCELED!"

    Hahaha



    EDIT: Also, media....let's stop calling it "KILLER BUG", which makes us sound like 3 year olds.
    Let's stick with MRSA. :up:
     
    #2 Wilhelm-Scream, Nov 2, 2007
  3. jaguarr

    jaguarr Be Your Own Hero

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    I'm working from home and I have a local station playing in the background on the TV and I heard one of their news promo's for tonights show and it went something like "A new supervirus has been found that could threaten the lives of you and your loved ones. Tune in at ten tonight to find out what you can do to protect yourself."

    LOL! Okay, killer bug that's a matter of life and death and I have to wait until ten o' clock tonight to find out what it is and how to protect myself? :D

    jag
     
    #3 jaguarr, Nov 2, 2007
  4. Wilhelm-Scream

    Wilhelm-Scream Registered

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    Watch. OUR. Channel. Or. DIE!
     
    #4 Wilhelm-Scream, Nov 2, 2007
  5. SoulManX

    SoulManX The Inspector!

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    [​IMG]

    A friend mine had and said if felt like hot mayo running out of his wound.
     
    #5 SoulManX, Nov 2, 2007
  6. Wilhelm-Scream

    Wilhelm-Scream Registered

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    yum!
     
    #6 Wilhelm-Scream, Nov 2, 2007
  7. jaguarr

    jaguarr Be Your Own Hero

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    Who wants a sandwich from Subway? Mmmmm!

    jag
     
    #7 jaguarr, Nov 2, 2007
  8. Carcharodon

    Carcharodon Registered

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    Microevolution FTW.

    Superbugs are our doing. :csad:
     
    #8 Carcharodon, Nov 2, 2007
  9. AhabTheArab

    AhabTheArab Registered

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    makes me think, how exactly did all these people get this bug? who does not wash their hands after taking a ****? and if you are at a restaurant... hell this might make me never go to one again... laziest generation ever is not gonna kill me....
     
    #9 AhabTheArab, Nov 2, 2007
  10. AndThePickles

    AndThePickles Kiss the girl

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    Seriously, MRSA TERRIFIES me. I've been avoiding the gym because of it, but I really need to go :csad:
     
    #10 AndThePickles, Nov 2, 2007
  11. SoulManX

    SoulManX The Inspector!

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    Working in fast food in high school years I have seen **** that would turn you white.
     
    #11 SoulManX, Nov 2, 2007
  12. BlackLantern

    BlackLantern Registered

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    Maybe if people werent constantly over-medicating themselves for every little thing, their bodies would be a littlre more resistant to this type of thing.
     
    #12 BlackLantern, Nov 2, 2007
  13. Halcohol

    Halcohol Suit up

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    So this is the new Avian Flu? Goodie.

    Let me know when SARS decides to make its comeback.
     
    #13 Halcohol, Nov 2, 2007
  14. SuperMonkey

    SuperMonkey Registered

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    I got it a few years ago. sux
     
    #14 SuperMonkey, Nov 2, 2007
  15. AhabTheArab

    AhabTheArab Registered

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    exactly dude, so im never going to a restaurant when the little kiddies shifts are on... no way in hell...
     
    #15 AhabTheArab, Nov 2, 2007
  16. Wilhelm-Scream

    Wilhelm-Scream Registered

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    It has killed more people than AIDS has. It's hardly a SARSy/Avian Fluey type paranoia thing.
     
    #16 Wilhelm-Scream, Nov 2, 2007
  17. amazingfantasy15

    amazingfantasy15 Registered

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    Yeah, this reminds me of the Bird Flu, SARS, West Nile Virus, any of those "pandemics" that were supposed to wipe us out and none of them worked out. I think I'll continue with my life as usual. I always laugh at people who freak out about this, like all the people who stayed home New Year's '99 fearing Y2K. Me, I went to Detroit to see Kid Rock, Ted Nugent and Metallica, we watched the news as all over the world people celebrated with no probelms, New Years hit Detroit no problems, well there was one, a part of the city lost power because someone shot a transformer. I'll keep living life as I have been, not worrying about what the media is trying to scare me with this week.
     
    #17 amazingfantasy15, Nov 2, 2007
  18. Wilhelm-Scream

    Wilhelm-Scream Registered

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    Bird Flu, SARS, West Nile Virus and Ted Nugent did not kill more people than AIDS last year.
    I think.
     
    #18 Wilhelm-Scream, Nov 2, 2007
  19. BlackLantern

    BlackLantern Registered

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    Ted Nugent killed, skinned, and ate my cat....He then made a hat out of it...
     
    #19 BlackLantern, Nov 2, 2007
  20. AhabTheArab

    AhabTheArab Registered

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    kinda like that whole aids thing too huh? oh yea this bug has killed more people than aids did in a given year... weird....

    i personally relish the fact that the herd that is the human race will finally be thinned out, hopefully, this **** bug does the trick.
     
    #20 AhabTheArab, Nov 2, 2007
  21. BlackLantern

    BlackLantern Registered

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    Watch what you wish for....you might be one of the ones that is "thinned out".....:ninja:
     
    #21 BlackLantern, Nov 2, 2007
  22. amazingfantasy15

    amazingfantasy15 Registered

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    Every year the media warns us about a new virus that'll kill us all and it hasn't happened. I'm not gonna spend time worrying about it.
     
    #22 amazingfantasy15, Nov 2, 2007
  23. AhabTheArab

    AhabTheArab Registered

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    its not really worrying about it, its like worrying about terrorism, if they want to, they are gonna do it. but being aware is a different thing.

    and i mean it killed more people than aids in a given year... that isnt a little cause for concern? seeing as i see an aids commercial on television every day. and like the article stated... it starts from your poop. so just wash your hands, these little guys were created because someone didn't wash their hands.
     
    #23 AhabTheArab, Nov 2, 2007
  24. Arkady Rossovich

    Arkady Rossovich Registered

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    Poor hygene is how this came out in the first place.Wash yourselfs,otherwise you might end up dead.
     
    #24 Arkady Rossovich, Nov 2, 2007
  25. Ghostvirus

    Ghostvirus Registered

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    Serioiusly who doesn't wash there hands? I wash my hands after I eat a sandwich! After I take a duece I usually feel like taking a shower! Non-hygenic a-holes!
     
    #25 Ghostvirus, Nov 2, 2007
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