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How Norway Fought Staph Infections

Posted by timothy on from the they-fired-adrian-monk dept.

eldavojohn writes "Studies are showing that Norway's dirtiest hospitals are actually cleaner than most other countries', and the reason for this is that Norwegians stopped taking antibiotics. A number of factors like paid sick leave and now restrictions on advertising for drugs make Norway an anomaly when it comes to diseases like Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). A Norwegian doctor explains, 'We don't throw antibiotics at every person with a fever. We tell them to hang on, wait and see, and we give them a Tylenol to feel better.' Norway is the most MRSA free country in the world. In a country like Japan, where 17,000 die from MRSA every year, 'doctors overprescribe antibiotics because they are given financial incentives to push drugs on patients.'"

7 of 595 comments (clear)

  1. And the USA's new system by SnarfQuest · · Score: -1, Troll

    If you get sick, the government isn't going to want to waste money it could better use on helping Meicans safely cross the border illegally, so they'll just euthenize you. Thus, we'll have lower rates than any other country, once we replace our disease ridden population with those hardy mexicans.

    --
    Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
    1. Re:And the USA's new system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      White Americans are too busy watching their niggerball heroes on the Talmudvision to care. Mexicans are the symptom - Jews are the disease.

  2. If this is what Universal Health Care is like... by Nutria · · Score: 0, Troll

    count me out!!

    What I heard about hospitals in the UK is that they indeed are dirty,

    From TFA:

    Aker University Hospital is a dingy place to heal. The floors are streaked and scratched. A light layer of dust coats the blood pressure monitors. A faint stench of urine and bleach wafts from a pile of soiled bedsheets dropped in a corner.

    --
    "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
  3. Re:Stop with the drugs already by introspekt.i · · Score: 1, Troll

    ... lobbies haven't chipped away at the naïveté of youth.

    There, fixed that for you. Now go get vaccinated and get off my lawn.

  4. Re:Stop with the drugs already by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 0, Troll

    Are you the guy who sprays Lysol everywhere whenever someone sneezes at work?

    You might actually develop your own immune system if you quit huffing that noxious crap :)

  5. Re:Did someone in Norway really say 'Tylenol' ? by PCM2 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Sure. And if a grocery clerk or a truck driver told me this story and he casually mentioned Tylenol, I would think nothing of it. On the other hand, and maybe it's just because I'm a writer/editor myself, I expect reporters to nitpick. Accuracy is the job. Lack of attention to detail is the first inch down the slippery slope to sloppy journalism.

    --
    Breakfast served all day!
  6. might cause autism by r00t · · Score: -1, Troll

    Autoimmune problems can cause all sorts of weird trouble (for example all your hair falling out even eyelashes) and we know that vaccines can trigger autoimmune disease.

    It's completely possible that vaccines cause autism. It's very easy to determine this: we need a double-blind trial. We can look into non-autism problems too.

    This has been resisted. Can you blame anybody for being suspicious when people with obvious financial incentives are resisting a double-blind trial?