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California State Senator Introduces Bill That Would Mandate Reporting of 'Superbug' Infections, Deaths (reuters.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A California state senator introduced a bill on Monday that would mandate reporting of antibiotic-resistant infections and deaths and require doctors to record the infections on death certificates when they are a cause of death. The legislation also aims to establish the nation's most comprehensive statewide surveillance system to track infections and deaths from drug-resistant pathogens. Data from death certificates would be used to help compile an annual state report on superbug infections and related deaths. In September, a Reuters investigation revealed that tens of thousands of superbug deaths nationwide go uncounted every year. The infections are often omitted from death certificates, and even when they are recorded, they aren't counted because of the lack of a unified national surveillance system. Because there is no federal surveillance system, monitoring of superbug infections and deaths falls to the states. A Reuters survey of all 50 state health departments and the District of Columbia found that reporting requirements vary widely. Hill's bill would require hospitals and clinical labs to submit an annual summary of antibiotic-resistant infections to the California Department of Health beginning July 1, 2018; amend a law governing death certificates by requiring that doctors specify on death certificates when a superbug was the leading or a contributing cause of death; and require the state Health Department to publish an annual report on resistant infections and deaths, including data culled from death certificates.

75 comments

  1. Re: Not me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And where did you get your MD?

  2. Re: Not me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    if people did not go to the doctor there would be no medical accidents.(satire)

  3. Re: Not me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Trump University.

  4. Joke? by uldics · · Score: 1

    Lack of nationwide surveillance? Which satellite did he fell off? I wouldn't suppose a troll would get that high, neither such people tend to joke so hard.

    1. Re:Joke? by EmeraldBot · · Score: 1

      Lack of nationwide surveillance? Which satellite did he fell off? I wouldn't suppose a troll would get that high, neither such people tend to joke so hard.

      You don't think tracking superbugs is important???

      --
      "Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
    2. Re:Joke? by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Think of it as politicized medicine.
      Pathology and epidemiology something that most advanced nations teach and do well is often not liked in the US.
      In the past it tracked pollution related issues. The US private sector and mil did not like that kind of information to be public given the types of exposure workers suffered.
      Other nations could then locate US production, factories, workers, the raw materials or advanced materials due to decades of health issues, early deaths.
      The open boarders policy that brings in vast numbers of illegal immigrants and refugees now flood the US health system with lots of very expensive to treat and always reportable conditions.
      So the US gov just stops reporting, tracking or publishing medical issues and its all just happy junk science again.
      US pathology and epidemiology only gets to publish and track good news stories.
      In the rush to revise and hide conditions, the party political need not to track, state medical services now have to try and fill the medical reporting gaps.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    3. Re:Joke? by jedidiah · · Score: 2

      Your entire rant glosses over the very real fact that death certificates are total bullshit. NO ONE ever puts the real cause of death down because no one wants to get sued or get entangled in the ensuing mess. So the standard practice is to put down heart disease or cancer regardless of actual cause.

      This measure would be a considerable deviation from current practice.

      Truth in death reporting would actually be nice. It will probably set off a shit storm of litigation though.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    4. Re:Joke? by nbauman · · Score: 1

      Your entire rant glosses over the very real fact that death certificates are total bullshit. NO ONE ever puts the real cause of death down because no one wants to get sued or get entangled in the ensuing mess. So the standard practice is to put down heart disease or cancer regardless of actual cause.

      This measure would be a considerable deviation from current practice.

      Truth in death reporting would actually be nice. It will probably set off a shit storm of litigation though.

      There are many reasons why people don't put down the "real" cause of death on a death certificate.

      One reason is that they don't know the cause of death. You can't confidently determine the cause of death without an autopsy, and sometimes not even then.

      They have an immediate cause of death, and an underlying cause of death, and usually several conditions that the patient suffered from, most of which could have contributed to the death.

      For example, the immediate cause of death could be heart failure, with an underlying cause of cancer. A 90-year-old man would commonly be suffering from heart disease, cancer, atherosclerosis, and diabetes, in the presence of several bacteria that turn up in the lab. What caused the death? How much time and money do you want to spend to figure it out? Can you figure it out? What difference would it make?

      One of the journals, I think JAMA Internal Medicine (I don't have time to find the citation), had an article by a doctor who described how the coronor's office called him up about an elderly patient who had visited this doctor once and recently died. The coronor was trying to figure out how to fill out the death certificate. If they had a good reason, they wouldn't need an autopsy, which the family was trying to avoid. Finally the doctor said, His heart stopped beating, right? Put down heart failure. That's what they did.

      I remember reading the death statistics from prostate cancer in the US, which has reasonably accurate reporting. After PSA testing started, the death rate from prostate cancer suddenly increased for a couple of years. It wasn't because they found more prostate cancer. It was probably because doctors and medical examiners were more aware of prostate cancer and more likely to think of it as a cause of death, rather than heart disease.

    5. Re:Joke? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The term 'surveillance' is used in the scientific community in the way that most people would use the word "monitoring" or "tracking". The primary difference being connotation rather than absolute meaning.

      They want to better monitor the incidence and spread of these superbugs, not engage in sinister surveillance.

  5. Sorry. Do you not have this???? by Harlequin80 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I mean seriously? Do you not have a mandated system of reporting super bugs, infectious disease breakouts, and other nasties?

    1. Re: Sorry. Do you not have this???? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yes this is a ongoing medical registry that can impinge on or in other medical areas and les critical. this does not mean they will but it opens a door.

    2. Re: Sorry. Do you not have this???? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      thats reatarded

  6. games by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let the lawsuits commence!

  7. Re: Undocumented Diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There, their, they're... OK?

  8. Re: Not me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Lol...

  9. Re: Undocumented Diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    there is a place. not agreeing though

  10. Re:Sorry. Do you not have this???? by iggymanz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "superbug" is not a medical term, neither is "other nasties". The first is sensationalist journalist's term, the second came out of your ass. If the language on the bill contains the word "superbug" the senator should be intravenously fed goat shit.

    Proving that death was indeed caused by a multi-drug resistant strain is not trivial in many cases, the testing for that post-mortem would need technical standards that are not always agreed upon

  11. Re: Not me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Wait, wait, Trump University of Grenada, or Trump University of Arkham?

  12. See no problem with this. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Dead people have much less rights to privacy. While I do have a problem with the surveillance state we live under, I see no problem with disclosing the cause of death that could potentially end many other lives. In any case, this type of disclosure makes much more sense than NSA recording every fucking digital thing we do.

    1. Re:See no problem with this. by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      The US medical system fixes that issue by not reporting, looking for or finding such bugs.
      Every bug hunt is days of profit bed closures, expensive and excessive ward and room cleaning, boring staff training, waiting for results often by expensive outside labs.
      The word accreditation costs a lot when the hospital has a small self accredited lab thats always worked well.
      Fancy equipment and international standards then get mentioned in reports that show profitable local hospitals as having issues.
      State and federal bureaucrats ask questions, walk around, look for files, do interviews, the media finds out, fully insured patients start looking for clean hospitals online... and even write their own reviews.
      Just clean the rooms and equipment. Next payment and add in the patient.
      Every adverse event is then self signed internally and never has to be noticed by medical experts, the media or collected internationally.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  13. Re: It's a shame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    is thereonthat effects crackers whities and the like hey just saying seems lagit.

  14. Re: It's a shame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i supose if it is comunitable so easiely there are no real differences as well as mating produces children and thus a natural match.

  15. Re:Sorry. Do you not have this???? by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I mean seriously? Do you not have a mandated system of reporting super bugs, infectious disease breakouts, and other nasties?

    This is the United States of America, and I'm sure there are tons of congressmen who have taken lots of money from the health care industry to block any such regulation. The same congressmen who push laws that investigate women who've had miscarriages because of the possibility that they were really self-induced abortions.

    Here in Texas, there's a woman doing 20 years for aborting her own baby. We're a nation governed by savages who wrap themselves in "God's Will". Here in Texas, it's easier to open a gun superstore than it is to open a free clinic for women.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  16. Re:It's a shame by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

    It's a shame that superbugs don't disproportionately infect darkies. I would support any type of superbug that mostly infects niiggers, kikes, or towelheads. It's a shame that a strain of HIV hasn't evolved to be carried by white women, but infecting only niigger bucks that attempt to rape the white women.

    Mr Bannon, you're needed in the Oval Office.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  17. Slashdot Shadowban by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Gotcha Slashdot - you drop my posts since it doesn't match your globalist narrative.

  18. Re:Sorry. Do you not have this???? by Harlequin80 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sigh, seriously is it necessary to use muti-drug resistant strain when common parlance is superbug? Would you have preferred that I listed the medical names or each and everything thing that should have mandatory reporting associated with it? As for proving it's presence I'm sorry but that is just bullshit. One of the good things about MRSA is that it is easily detectable. It doesn't need to be the case of it being the deciding cause of death. It is enough if it is even present.

    Here perhaps this will help you. This is what other countries have managed to agree upon as a notification regime.

    Group A - Immediate Notification - Anthrax Botulism Chikungunya virus infection Cholera Diphtheria Food or water borne illness (2 or more related cases) Haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS) Haemophilus influenzae type b infection (Hib) (epiglottitis, meningitis and other invasive infections) Hepatitis A Japanese encephalitis Legionellosis Measles Meningococcal infection (invasive) Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS CoV) Murray Valley encephalitis virus Paratyphoid Plague Poliovirus infection Rabies Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) Smallpox Tularaemia Typhoid Viral haemorrhagic fevers Yellow fever

    Group B - 5 days in writing - Arbovirus infection – other Barmah Forest virus infection Brucellosis Campylobacteriosis Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (classical/ variant) Cryptosporidiosis Dengue virus infection Hepatitis B (newly acquired/ unspecified) Hepatitis C (newly acquired/ unspecified) Hepatitis D Hepatitis E
      Hepatitis viral (not further specified) Influenza (laboratory confirmed) (types A and B) Kunjin virus infection Lead (blood lead > 5 g/dL) Leprosy Leptospirosis Listeriosis Lyssavirus (incl. Australian bat lyssavirus) Malaria Mumps Mycobacterium ulcerans Pertussis Pneumococcal infection (invasive) Psittacosis (ornithosis) Q fever Ross River virus infection Rubella (incl. congenital rubella syndrome) Salmonellosis Shigatoxin and verotoxin producing Esherichia coli (STEC/VTEC) Shigellosis Tetanus Tuberculosis (pulmonary/ extrapulmonary) Varicella (chickenpox/herpes zoster [shingles])

  19. Re:Undocumented Diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Their not "superbugs" - that word has negative connotations and is discriminatory against refugees, Africans, and Latinos. It should be "enhanced indispositions". I'm triggered - wha wha wha, I need a therapy animal and a safe space now.

    Sorry Mr. Trump, but as you can see below, Mr. Bannon got here before you.

    P.S: We already provide both of those, but you never use them anyway.

  20. Re: Sorry. Do you not have this???? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Tons of congressman == about 3

    Blue whale football fields

  21. Re:Sorry. Do you not have this???? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nope. Worse, every state does things differently. The answers to simple questions like "how many deaths occurred in the US in 2015 with xxx being the cause or a contributing factor" will often have large and heavily disputed ranges like "between 150,000 and 300,000". It makes it nearly impossible to spot trends or know where to spend research funds for greatest advantage. That seems to be by design. You can likely guess many of the reasons.

  22. My mom died of a "superbug" by banbeans · · Score: 2

    She went in with heart issues but it was the "superbug" that killed her.
    I was so pissed that it was not mentioned on the death certificate, just the heart issues.
    It is debatable if the heart issues would not have killed her anyway, but it was the infection that killed her.

    1. Re:My mom died of a "superbug" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Hmm, I try my best to stay out of hospitals - this is one reason.

    2. Re: My mom died of a "superbug" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry to hear about your mother. May she rest in peace.

    3. Re:My mom died of a "superbug" by loonycyborg · · Score: 1

      Well, of course, if it's a superbug then it's probably clinic-originated so reporting it would make them look bad. Only way to fight resistant bacteria is to restrict use of antibiotics to cases when they're really needed, and medics worldwide for various reasons failed to do it, and so they're instead pretending that nothing is happening.

  23. Re: Sorry. Do you not have this???? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    hey good enough for me. apon death seems about eught.

  24. Re:Sorry. Do you not have this???? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Bacteria are one of several types of "bugs", in the language of the unwashed masses. I know of no bacterial species (if "species" is appropriate for bacteria) which is not "resistant" to a large number of chemicals (any chemical can be a "drug", I suppose with the arguable exception of water). So, there are no bacteria which are not "superbugs". The problem with this legislation, as you point out, is establishing the technical standards to classify a particular strain as "super" or not. Last I heard, those little nasties are mutating constantly. I suspect, but I don't know, that the vast majority of supposed "superbugs" are diagnoses by elimination. That is, well, we gave Mr X a 40mg dose QID IV of pathcin Z and he died, so he must have had a superbug.
    The most likely reason I can see for government to gather this kind of information is as a precursor to legislation to limit the use of antibiotics. And possibly to mandate full courses of treatment under penalty of law. This strikes me as an attempt to create a BSA, modeled on the TSA, a huge federal bureaucracy which impacts most of us negatively, but occasionally - rarely, actually - will be useful.

  25. Everything Old is New Again by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 2

    The Andromeda Strain was published in 1969.

    The United States has some disease reporting, it started at least 75 years ago before the antibiotic bubble. This CDC Report summarizes the present state of disease reporting, in two pages. We need higher standards of reporting and legal penalties for failure to report.

  26. Re:It's a shame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    sure there is, ask jenny mccarthy.

  27. Re:Sorry. Do you not have this???? by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    The US party political system did not want a vast jump in such issues to be collected and published thanks to the vast numbers of illegal migrants and refugees entering the USA.
    So the US gov altered a lot of reportable health issues from the watch lists.
    Pathology and epidemiology at a US state and federal level was getting weak and lacked basic collection of stats most nations always collect and publish.
    "Medical Examination of Aliens-Revisions to Medical Screening Process"
    https://www.federalregister.go...
    All kinds of issues got " revised" like active tuberculosis, infectious syphilis, gonorrhoea, infectious leprosy, chancroid, lymphogranuloma venereum, granuloma inguinale, and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection ..."
    Some issues related to TB is about all the US gov wants to track.
    State health tracking issues like this just bring back what the wider US gov wanted to hide.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  28. The incomming administration here in the states by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    makes me nervous. By all accounts we just beat back a fairly major problem in the form of Zika. It was done with quick and decisive action. The incoming Administration seems to fall into that belief system that gov't, especially national gov't, should stay out of things. Leave it to the states. But lots of poor states just don't have the resources or political will. And it's not like epidemics observe state lines. What's gonna happen if we have a bird flu or a Zika or an Ebola while people who believe government is incapable of doing anything useful are in charge?

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:The incomming administration here in the states by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      The average income by state varies by a factor of a little less than 2:1 from highest to lowest. Since housing costs are lower at the bottom of the list, the actual effective income range is somewhat less. This means that classifying a state as poor is nonsense.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  29. Re:Undocumented Diseases by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    AC its not measles, whooping cough, mumps, scarlet fever, HIV, scabies, tuberculosis, leprosy, syphilis, gonorrhoea or diphtheria.
    Think of all the scientific and cultural enrichment for the US doctors.
    Why even track or report the issues when free US medical care will help every illegal migrant?
    Better keep tracking the tuberculosis, leprosy, syphilis, and gonorrhoea.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  30. Re:Sorry. Do you not have this???? by sexconker · · Score: 1

    This strikes me as an attempt to create a BSA

    BSAA - Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance

    Also, Rebecca Chambers > Claire Redfield > Jill Valentine > Ada Wong

  31. Re: Undocumented Diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    There's a place in space where the naked ladies pace, and they're not ones to care if you steal their underwear.

  32. Re:Sorry. Do you not have this???? by Harlequin80 · · Score: 2

    MRSA the primary "super"bug is usually identified in the lab. A culture is taken and it is then grown. That culture is then exposed to various antibiotics and its sensitivity to those drugs is then reported back to the treating physician.

    In some cases a bacterial infection is so severe or fast moving that this process takes too long. But it can usually be done within 24 hours. Unfortunately I am personally familiar with the process as my daughter gets urinary tract infections that move to her kidneys. Most of them are treatable with cephalixin but once every 2 years or so she will get one that has to be treated with IV anti-biotics. Everytime she gets an infection we get the read on it's sensitivity the next day.

    In Australia when an MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) is detected in the lab a central body is notified and a living sample is sent to them for further analysis.

  33. Re: The incomming administration here in the state by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We will build walls, between the states, between the rich and poor, the white and brown, the land and sea.

    This solving the problems once and for all.

    ONCE AND FOR ALL!

  34. Re:Sorry. Do you not have this???? by EzInKy · · Score: 1

    MRSA can be identified by PCR. No need to wait days for cultures to grow.

    --
    Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
  35. Re:Sorry. Do you not have this???? by Rockoon · · Score: 1, Informative

    Sigh, seriously is it necessary to use muti-drug resistant strain when common parlance is superbug?

    When legislating, common parlance should be avoided every time.

    "Well regulated" was common parlance when the constitution was written, and loosely meant "in working order."

    Now the leftists argue that a ban on public gun ownership is consitutional under the premise that "well regulated" now means "State controlled."

    So fuck off with your stupid ideas about how legislation should be worded. Before long, "superbug" will mean something different, moron.

    --
    "His name was James Damore."
  36. Re:Sorry. Do you not have this???? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    US Department of Health and Human Services with its CDC should be naturally on top of the multi- and super resistant strains. Why that might not be is a total mystery. How else could the elected officials make rational decisions affecting the public health if there are no proper statistics about it?

  37. Re:Sorry. Do you not have this???? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Staphylococcus Aureus can be identified using PCR. But we don't know all the genetic variations that enable antibiotic resistance, or how resistant these strains are. That can only be determined via cultures.

  38. Re:Sorry. Do you not have this???? by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 2

    Proving that death was indeed caused by a multi-drug resistant strain is not trivial in many cases, the testing for that post-mortem would need technical standards that are not always agreed upon

    Yep most people of complications like pneumonia rather than the original infection.

    --

    Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

  39. Re:Sorry. Do you not have this???? by Harlequin80 · · Score: 2

    Pretty sure the cultures are needed to determine resistance / sensitivity to drugs. PCR detects SA in general.

  40. Re:Sorry. Do you not have this???? by Harlequin80 · · Score: 2

    How about fuck off with your comprehension fail. I never once proposed legislative wording, but referred to an informal communication method on a general forum.

  41. Re:Sorry. Do you not have this???? by Rockoon · · Score: 0

    I never once proposed legislative wording, but referred to an informal communication method on a general forum.

    You replied to someone criticizing its possible use in the legislation, and within that reply you defended its use in a completely unqualified manner.

    Maye you should learn how to follow along before trying to discuss things on a "general forum."

    --
    "His name was James Damore."
  42. Mandate reporting when antibiotics are prescribed. by RealGene · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Let's be completely honest here: overprescribing of antibiotics by physicians, especially when a patient obviously has a virus for which an antibiotic is useless, is partially to blame for the widespread prevalence of MR bugs. Use of specialized, last-resort antibiotics for routine infection is common.
    The other factor is the unconscionable "prophylactic" use of antibiotics in farm animals to sustain flocks in overcrowded conditions and stimulate weight gain in cattle.
    You, or someone you love, *will* develop an opportunistic, difficult to treat infection as a result of trying to keep beef and chicken prices low.

    --
    Mission: To provide products that consume time and energy as entertainingly as permitted by the laws of thermodynamics.
  43. Re:Sorry. Do you not have this???? by tomhath · · Score: 2

    The National Healthcare Safety Network (part of the Centers for Disease Control) tracks all kinds of things, including MDROs (Multi-Drug Resistant Organisms). The gentleman from California is just posturing. .

  44. Farming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > The other factor is the unconscionable "prophylactic" use of antibiotics in farm animals to sustain flocks in overcrowded conditions and stimulate weight gain in cattle.

    This is *by a big factor* the more important breeding ground for antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

  45. Re: Sorry. Do you not have this???? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your a maroon.

  46. Re:Mandate reporting when antibiotics are prescrib by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 1

    Yes. But we need to be aware that man is not the only source of antibiotics. They naturally occur. We get a good lot of them from plants and bacteria, starting of course with penicilin which we got from mold, and which was already present on salted food and damp environments. What we did was to make antibiotics present in organisms other than their natural sources.

  47. Re:Sorry. Do you not have this???? by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

    It's not entirely a mystery. One reason has been mentioned several times above, but needs to be clarified. Immigrants, especially illegal immigrants, bring in diseases. Several years ago this was a major political issue, with Democrats (who want open borders to get more votes) and anarchist/libertarians (who want no restrictions on movement on ideological grounds) favoring unlimited immigration. Those partisans denied the disease importation claims and decried the claims as racist and xenophobic, and then took steps to prevent accurate reporting in order to promote their political goals.

    In short: it's political action by people who don't care about the well-being of most Americans.

    --
    Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  48. Re:Mandate reporting when antibiotics are prescrib by Sir_Eptishous · · Score: 1

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of this problem is that it is mainly driven by industrial agricultures over-reliance on antibiotics to increase the weight of their livestock.

    I've noticed there has been a coordinated media effort to lay blame on doctors(not that they are without blame in this mess) and on purchasing antibiotics from Mexico, etc.

    However, isn't the majority of antibiotic use in AG?

    --
    We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
  49. Re:Sorry. Do you not have this???? by sjames · · Score: 1

    Sure, God knows we don't want the peasants to actually understand the law of the land. We should probably write laws in Latin.

  50. Re:Mandate reporting when antibiotics are prescrib by dcollins117 · · Score: 1

    ...overprescribing of antibiotics by physicians, especially when a patient obviously has a virus for which an antibiotic is useless...

    The reason antibiotics are prescribed in the case of viral disease is to prevent secondary infections. I'm not going to start second-guessing physicians who have extensive training in the matter.

    I acquired a MRSA soft tissue infection several years ago while in my local hospital. It wasn't pleasant. Now that I'm on the "MRSA list", though, I always get a single room when I'm hospitalized, and that's pretty sweet.

  51. Re:Sorry. Do you not have this???? by nbauman · · Score: 1

    Here perhaps this will help you. This is what other countries have managed to agree upon as a notification regime.

    (Sigh.) Here's an internet phenomenon. Somebody does a Google search, finds something he doesn't understand, and pastes it into a comment.

    This isn't a list of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, it's a list of reportable emerging tropical diseases. You don't seem to understand the difference between bacteria and viruses.

    This list doesn't even include methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), or Clostridium difficile, which is what we're talking about. http://www.reuters.com/investi...

    Let me guess: You never took a bacteriology course in your life, right?

  52. Re:It's a shame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's a shame that superbugs don't disproportionately infect darkies. I would support any type of superbug that mostly infects niiggers, kikes, or towelheads. It's a shame that a strain of HIV hasn't evolved to be carried by white women, but infecting only niigger bucks that attempt to rape the white women.

    Mr Bannon, you're needed in the Oval Office.

    Tsk tsk tsk Hillary. You know both good comes from you touching a computer. Just admit defeat and don't be a sore loser by trying to sabotage the opponent that won.

  53. Re:Sorry. Do you not have this???? by Harlequin80 · · Score: 1

    What I was getting at was that there was an objection to my use of the term superbug and the term "other nasties" in a common speech setting. I'm not proposing the legislative wording. I got annoyed at the pretentiousness of the comment that implied that by using common parlance in an internet forum I was somehow implying that that common parlance should be used in the legislation or that I am unable to comprehend the implications of legislation.

    I then decided to use the list of reportable diseases that are used in my local area. I was aware that MRSA was not on that list, which surprised me honestly, but it was in particular directed at the "Other Nasties - came out of you ass" comment. I have since learned that MRSA is covered in Australia by a separate reporting system as it is not possible for anything other than a lab to identify its existence.

    My original comment was to express surprise that a common reporting mechanism for infectious diseases was not in place at a federal level in the US. Apparently however my use of the term "superbug & other nasties", the first of which was in the original article and the second, to me, a very common catch all type term, seems to have confused some as to the purpose of my original comment.

    Are you saying that is it necessary to have taken a bacteriology course in order to express surprise at that?

  54. waiting rooms potentially causing deaths by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't know about elsewhere, but I consider it shocking that in my country it seems common practice to put the most vulnerable people (eg the frail and elderly) for extended periods of time with infectious people (ie. Those who have come in with flues) in medical waiting rooms. surely this is an inhumane, terrible thing?

  55. Re:Sorry. Do you not have this???? by PCM2 · · Score: 1

    First, this isn't the United States we're talking about. This is the State of California, proposing legislation for its own state jurisdiction.

    Second, the United States has a thing you may have heard of called the Centers for Disease Control. The CDC does in fact have a list of notifiable diseases, which you can see here. Vancomycin-resistant infections are on that list, vancomycin being one of the "last resort" antibiotics used to treat severe, resistant staphylococcus aureus and clostridium difficile infections.

    So it would appear that the California State Senator just wants to tighten up the requirements even further and ensure that the information is made available to the State of California.

    What a horrible thing.

    --
    Breakfast served all day!
  56. Re:Mandate reporting when antibiotics are prescrib by PCM2 · · Score: 1

    I acquired a MRSA soft tissue infection several years ago while in my local hospital. It wasn't pleasant. Now that I'm on the "MRSA list", though, I always get a single room when I'm hospitalized, and that's pretty sweet.

    That's really interesting. I have a friend who recently told me that he contracted such an infection when he was injured once, and now he's at a high risk of getting infected again anytime his skin is breached. He just scraped his knee falling off a skateboard and ended up having to go in to the clinic for IV antibiotics. Seems he's colonized with the stuff. I never realized that's something that could happen.

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    Breakfast served all day!
  57. Re:Sorry. Do you not have this???? by Harlequin80 · · Score: 1

    I am aware of the CDC, but I guess my surprise just moves to a different area. As in if there is a federal requirement for these diseases to be notified, why doesn't the states have full access to that information?

    I live in a federation made up of separate states as well. Each state has its own government and there is continual stress between the State and the Federal govt regarding authority. Health is funded at the state level for example. But the reporting of these types of diseases is mandated at a federal level and then the data shared with the states. Some of the states have additional reporting requirements as well when there is a particular state prevalent disease or there is a feeling that the feds were ignoring something.