We've been hearing more and more about people who go into the hospital for even minor elective surgery and end up losing their lives to infections they get there.
Now a new
study says an estimated 48,000 people die each year of blood poisoning or pneumonia they come down with in the hospital, at a cost of more than $8 billion.
And that's just half the estimated 100,000 deaths every year from all "hospital-acquired" infections.
Why can't antibiotics just knock out these infections? For one thing, bacteria have become resistant to the antibiotics we've got.
And drug industry R&D on new antibiotics has
declined. Antibiotics that someone will take for a short time aren't as profitable as, for example, cholesterol drugs they'll take for decades.
So we're dealing with "superbugs" like MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), a strain of staph that's become resistant to the antibiotics that have been used to treat it.
While MRSA used to be just an issue in hospitals, it now is common outside them, too. The Infectious Diseases Society has on its Web site
stories of people who have battled MRSA, including some who have died.
The society is urging the public to
write their congressman supporting a bill (HR 2400) by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, to strengthen the federal response to infectious pathogens.
As far as protecting yourself,
Scientific American put out a list of ways to "stave off hospital superbugs and other nasty germs."
Number one: When doctors and nurses come in to examine you, ask them to wash their hands. I've been doing this at doctors' visits for a couple of years, and only one doctor expressed any annoyance. Another doctor said, "Everybody should be asking this."