On Mon, 21 Jan 2008 21:15:49 -0000, "Pat Gardiner"
 wrote:

>Pat's Note: The stupid beggars are trying to blame the Yanks, but they 
>forget something pretty important. You can't do that with the internet 
>unless you get it right
>
>A Canadian has commented and correctly fingered pigs - go look at the page:
>
>"MRSA is caused from giving antibiotics to factory farmed pigs. This has 
>been proven in Canada and Europe. 70% of our antibiotics are given to 
>factory farm animals to keep them alive in the vile conditions in which they 
>are forced to exist in crowded warehouses where they can't even more and 
>stand in their waste.
>The lethal MRSA virus which is carried by pigs can jump to humans and 20% of 
>the pig farmers in Ontario carry it and more in Europe. If humans continue 
>to have no regard for life and use sentient beings as commodities, there 
>were be more and more of these mutated viruses and human beings will suffer 
>the consequences."
>
>- Colleen, Toronto, Canada
>
>http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=509416&in_page_id=1774
>
>GPs on alert for killer MRSA strain in nurseries, schools and the gym
>
>Family doctors are being put on high alert for cases of a flesh-eating 
>strain of MRSA that thrives in nurseries, classrooms and gyms.
>
>GPs will for the first time be given detailed guidelines on how to diagnose 
>and treat the highly infectious bug, thought to be even deadlier than the 
>version sweeping through hospitals.
>
>The risk is so serious that the Health Protection Agency and the British 
>Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy have come together to draw up the 
>advice, designed to stop the bug running riot across the UK as it has in the 
>U.S.
>
>Unlike normal MRSA, communityacquired MRSA produces a flesh-eating poison 
>that can rapidly eat away at the lungs, killing within hours.
>
>The toxin also destroys infection-fighting white blood cells, putting fit, 
>young, healthy people - including children and babies - at threat.
>
>Already rampant in the U.S., communityacquired MRSA infects more than 150 
>Britons a year and the figure is rising by more than 30 per cent a year. 
>Some experts also believe the true scale has not been fully reported.
>
>Professor Mark Enright, a superbug expert from Imperial College London, said 
>it was possible that many cases of community-acquired MRSA were going 
>undetected, making the true toll much higher than the 159 cases reported to 
>the HPA in 2006.
>
>He said: "Unless GPs know what to look for, we won't know we have a 
>community-acquired MRSA problem until it's a very big problem.
>
>"In the U.S. it has gone from being something confined to small communities 
>such as drug users and prisons and sports teams to become a problem in 
>children, young adults and the general population.
>
>"It is the most common cause of infectious disease in people going into A&E 
>in the U.S. We don't think it is anything like as common over here but we 
>don't really know because we are not looking for it."
>
>So far in the UK, the bug has killed at least eight in the last three years, 
>including a ten-year-old girl and an 18-year-old Marine. The bug can enter 
>the bloodstream through cuts and grazes, so children are particularly at 
>risk.
>
>Crowded nurseries and classrooms are ideal breeding grounds, as are gyms and 
>changing rooms where the infection can be caught simply from sharing towels.
>Symptoms range from the superficial but painful, such as boils, to fatal 
>blood poisoning.
>
>Patients can die within 24 hours of spread to the lungs due to a form of 
>pneumonia in which the flesh is rapidly eaten away by a poison - the 
>Panton-Valentine Leukocidin, or PVL - produced by the bug, which also 
>destroys white blood cells and thus the body's immune system.
>
>Fifty per cent of victims with necrotising pneumonia die within the first 24 
>hours.
>
>Community-acquired MRSA is on the march in the U.S. because it is becoming 
>resistant to overused antibiotics.
>
>Experts fear that could also happen in the UK. Doctors and scientists are 
>anxious to prevent community-acquired MRSA from becoming as devastating as 
>the version caught in hospitals.
>
>An estimated 300,000 Britons a year pick up superbugs such as MRSA while 
>being treated in hosbecomingpital and at least 5,000 die.
>Professor Dilip Nathwani, chairman of the group putting together the 
>guidelines, said: "We want to learn from the more typical hospital-acquired 
>MRSA strain which has become endemic in our hospitals.
>
>"If we improve diagnosis and prevention of this illness maybe we will slow 
>down or prevent it from endemic in our communities.
>
>The guidelines, due to be published in March, will advise on how to spot and 
>treat the infection, which is often initially overlooked, with GPs 
>mistakenly thinking telltale boils and abscesses are caused by other, less 
>sinister infections.
>
>Professor Nathwani said: "If someone has recurrent infections of the skin, I 
>would encourage them to ask their GP, 'Could this be communityacquired 
>MRSA?' Don't be shy."
>
>Patients found to be infected could be given antibiotics, which are 
>effective when given early, and, if necessary, admitted to hospital.
>
>To prevent infection outside hospital, people should make sure all cuts and 
>grazes are properly cleaned and covered.
>
>They should also avoid sharing towels and toothbrushes and ensure any gym 
>they use is cleaned thoroughly.
>
>. Richard Campbell-Smith was a fit and healthy 18-year-old Marine when he 
>caught community acquired MRSA by grazing a leg on gorse while on exercise.
>He died two days after the lethal infection entered his bloodstream.
>
>He was 28 weeks into his 32-week induction at the Commando Training Centre 
>at Lympstone, Devon, when tragedy stuck. He and other recruits had spent the 
>week on a rigorous training programme.
>
>He scratched his legs while running on Woodbury Common in late 2004. He was 
>soon struggling to walk and had to be admitted to the base's medical centre.
>The infection spread rapidly, causing major organs to fail, and two days 
>later he was found collapsed by his bed. He was taken to hospital but died 
>shortly after arrival. 
>