CHICAGO — Testing all new hospital patients for a dangerous staph “superbug” could help wipe out a germ that likely kills more Americans than AIDS, consumer advocates say and early evidence suggests.
Yet few U.S. hospitals do it, and many fight efforts to require it. Why? Jeanine Thomas, who nearly died from the drug-resistant staph bug, says it’s simple: “Doctors don’t want to be told what to do.”
The Chicago suburbanite’s personal crusade led Illinois this year to become the first state to order testing of all high-risk hospital patients and isolation of those who carry the staph germ called MRSA.
Powerful doctor groups fought it. The testing and isolation of patients would be too costly, they said. Many other germs plague hospitals that require attention. Experts said a more proven approach would focus on better hand washing by hospital staff – a simple measure tough to enforce.
Yet, Thomas prevailed. Similar measures passed this year in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. And Thomas’ national crusade to make hospitals test for MRSA and report their infection rates gained steam last week after a Virginia teenager’s death from the germ and a government report estimated it causes dangerous infections that sicken more than 90,000 Americans each year and kill nearly 19,000.
Suddenly the little-known germ with the cumbersome name, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, is getting lots of attention.
MRSA, pronounced muhr- suh, has been around for decades and in recent years has spread to schools, prisons and crowded public housing projects. Even healthy people can carry it on their skin.
It may look like a pimple or spider bite that doesn’t heal, but it can turn deadly if it enters the bloodstream or morphs into a flesh-eating wound.
Yet, many infection control experts note that MRSA is just one of dozens of risky germs that infect people in hospitals.
But Lisa McGiffert doesn’t buy it. The director of the Consumers Union’s campaign to stop hospital infections calls that “an argument of distraction.”
