AIDS redux.
Lord have MRSA! The misinformation buzzing around about staph infections is making my boils burst. First, this article is released to the news media and now the fundamentalist right is claiming it's the new AIDS.
Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth (www.americansfortruth.org), issued the following statement in reaction to news reports that a new variety of staph bacteria, MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) -- highly resistant to antibiotics and possibly transmitted by sexual contact -- is spreading among homosexual men in San Francisco and other major cities.
According to researchers, the risk of contracting this potential deadly and drug-resistant bug is 13 times greater for gay men than for the rest of San Francisco's population. The San Francisco Chronicle reports: "What is unusual in this case is the high percentage of infections -- up to 40 percent -- occurring in the buttocks and genitalia."
LaBarbera asked:
Is this not an eerie reminder of the initial stories 25 years ago about AIDS -- then called GRID (Gay-Related Immunodeficiency Disease)?
Yes, Mr. LaBarbera, all the elements are there:
1) Similar to HIV and herpes in the early years of the epidemic, MRSA is still not well understood. We know that at least 1% of the general population is now colonized with MRSA, and it may be higher (10% of children in daycare and growing). Colonized means if you stick a cotton swab in your nose and smear it on a Petri dish, in 24-48 hours, MRSA will grow from your boogers. But we still don't know why many colonized people never develop an infection, and some who aren't colonized get a whopping infection the first time they're exposed to someone who is colonized. Anything that increases close skin contact (daycare, military service, wrestling) increases the chance of transmission. Including sex: M2M, M2F, F2F, F2M.
2) Similar to HIV and herpes, we don't have a cure. We are rapidly depleting our armament of antibiotics due to frequent overuse. Most colds and coughs don't need antibiotics, yet doctors continue to prescribe them and patients continue to demand them. The only effective cure for a MRSA boil is often just to make an incision and drain it. If MRSA spreads to your bloodstream, it can become rapidly fatal if not treated early. There are currently only two antibiotics that work, and if not given early enough, have little effect. And when we don't have a cure, science goes out the window and hysteria sets in.
3) Similar to HIV, many of the early studies on AIDs were based on shoddy research, and this most recent study on MRSA has a few holes as well. First, it's a retrospective population-based survey and cross-sectional study using chart review. Translation: this is generally one of the weakest study designs. Second, as part of the study, the researcher included the data from men who were already HIV-positive, and lumped them together with men who weren't.
So yes, Mr. LaBarbera, this is an eery reminder of the stories 25 years ago about AIDS:
Take a frightening illness (boils! skin infections! uncleanliness!) that can be fatal, add the fact that there's not a very effective treatment, throw in a powerful albeit misinformed sound-byte media and a historically marginalized population [insert here: gay menAfrican-Americans/Haitians/IV drug users]. . . and the ingredients are all there for twenty-five more years of irrational health policy and a failure to address the main issue at hand: MRSA is not going away anytime soon, and we need better drugs, and better ways to control it than singling out certain groups. And that starts with education and prevention. We have met the enemy, and it's in our boogers.
Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth (www.americansfortruth.org), issued the following statement in reaction to news reports that a new variety of staph bacteria, MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) -- highly resistant to antibiotics and possibly transmitted by sexual contact -- is spreading among homosexual men in San Francisco and other major cities.
According to researchers, the risk of contracting this potential deadly and drug-resistant bug is 13 times greater for gay men than for the rest of San Francisco's population. The San Francisco Chronicle reports: "What is unusual in this case is the high percentage of infections -- up to 40 percent -- occurring in the buttocks and genitalia."
LaBarbera asked:
Is this not an eerie reminder of the initial stories 25 years ago about AIDS -- then called GRID (Gay-Related Immunodeficiency Disease)?
Yes, Mr. LaBarbera, all the elements are there:
1) Similar to HIV and herpes in the early years of the epidemic, MRSA is still not well understood. We know that at least 1% of the general population is now colonized with MRSA, and it may be higher (10% of children in daycare and growing). Colonized means if you stick a cotton swab in your nose and smear it on a Petri dish, in 24-48 hours, MRSA will grow from your boogers. But we still don't know why many colonized people never develop an infection, and some who aren't colonized get a whopping infection the first time they're exposed to someone who is colonized. Anything that increases close skin contact (daycare, military service, wrestling) increases the chance of transmission. Including sex: M2M, M2F, F2F, F2M.
2) Similar to HIV and herpes, we don't have a cure. We are rapidly depleting our armament of antibiotics due to frequent overuse. Most colds and coughs don't need antibiotics, yet doctors continue to prescribe them and patients continue to demand them. The only effective cure for a MRSA boil is often just to make an incision and drain it. If MRSA spreads to your bloodstream, it can become rapidly fatal if not treated early. There are currently only two antibiotics that work, and if not given early enough, have little effect. And when we don't have a cure, science goes out the window and hysteria sets in.
3) Similar to HIV, many of the early studies on AIDs were based on shoddy research, and this most recent study on MRSA has a few holes as well. First, it's a retrospective population-based survey and cross-sectional study using chart review. Translation: this is generally one of the weakest study designs. Second, as part of the study, the researcher included the data from men who were already HIV-positive, and lumped them together with men who weren't.
So yes, Mr. LaBarbera, this is an eery reminder of the stories 25 years ago about AIDS:
Take a frightening illness (boils! skin infections! uncleanliness!) that can be fatal, add the fact that there's not a very effective treatment, throw in a powerful albeit misinformed sound-byte media and a historically marginalized population [insert here: gay menAfrican-Americans/Haitians/IV drug users]. . . and the ingredients are all there for twenty-five more years of irrational health policy and a failure to address the main issue at hand: MRSA is not going away anytime soon, and we need better drugs, and better ways to control it than singling out certain groups. And that starts with education and prevention. We have met the enemy, and it's in our boogers.