UPDATE: 26 December 2009 -
A new study reports a surge in drug-resistant strains of a dangerous type of bacteria in US hospitals: Acinetobacter strikes patients in Intensive Care Units (ICUs) and others and often causes severe pneumonias or bloodstream infection, some of which are now resistant to imipenem, an antibiotic that is reserved for last-line treatment.
Read Complete Story - New Strain of Resistant Bacteria Reported
I'm not sure how many times we have to read similar articles over the 16 years I have been involved in this issue in me effort to get some repsonse from MS medicine and MS media, while thousands suffer or die.
Once again I'm posting my challenge, a repost originally from August 2006. I'm expecting a response, as I usually do.
"How many times...? "as the song goes.
Alternative Cure For 'Flesh-Eating' Bacteria
From Gayle Eversole, DHom, PhD, MH, CRNP, ND, Creating Health Institute
4-8-5
A CHALLENGE TO MAINSTREAM MEDICINE TO VENTURE OUTSIDE THE BOX
Reported today by Gene Emery of Reuters, flesh-eating bacteria is once again making headlines.
Emery reports, according to Loren Miller of UCLA Medical Center and Scott Fridkin of the CDC, that skin infections are now found outside hospital and include a new strain of antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.
Emery writes that doctors need to be aware of this and "switch to different antibiotics at the first sign of trouble."
He quotes Fridkin saying that "the alarm does need to be raised to people and clinicians that if you have a staph infection and it's not getting better, you'd better go back to your doctor." Later reports on findings from Miller's team saying that "doctors must shift their attitudes toward cases of necrotizing fasciitis -- the "flesh-eating" part of such a bacterial infection -- and check to see if methicillin-resistant staph is to blame."
Almost a decade ago, when flesh-eating bacteria were beginning to be reported, I called upon my experience as an intensive care nurse and manager of a burn center. I wanted to address this serious health problem from a natural healing perspective because I knew of the decades old problem with antibiotics that were not effectively treating the condition.
Emery's article further defines the problem of antibiotic resistance.
Consulting with a colleague of mine from the herbal traditions of Korea who spent a number of years at Dana Farber Institute at Harvard, I developed a protocol using a combination of his formulas that could be used for this condition. I submitted a package to a Washington State Department of Health researcher with clinical findings on the use of the formulas.
Time has passed quickly, yet at no time did I ever receive a reply, or even a glimmer of thought from this man about the possibility of a trial.
In response to a public health problem, I believed my approach deserved consideration because people were dying.
Subsequently, during the past decade I have responded to numerous media reports of flesh-eating bacteria, asking only for consideration. The closed minds locked in the Newtonian model prevalent in mainstream medicine never once gave consideration to a different way of seeing.
In addition to the herbal protocol I developed a series of fully referenced papers using pure essential oils to attack these bacteria. One of the texts I used as a reference is a medical textbook written by two French physicians. In France physicians are educated in the use of herbs and essential oils as therapeutic modalities.
Essential oils have a very long history and several have very effective anti-bacterial and anti-fungal capacity. Herbs used throughout thousands of years have this same capacity as well.
Seriously hoping to at least have one response, I am saddened to say that not one reply has ever been received.
One would now have to ask the question: What drives these health professionals to so totally disregard non-traditional treatment possibilities?
Today, I am placing my challenge on the table.
Doctors, if you are truly interested in treating and curing this problem, my protocols await.
NB: In early 2006 I was able to connect a research physician at Georgetown Medical School who is doing invetigation 'outside the box'. He advised me that "mainstream medicine is not ready to accept this." Of course, I do understand his comment but I have to wonder about the unwillingness to change and the cost of lives!
Related posts, 2 of about 2 dozen other similar articles in Natural Health News
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2006/08/mrsa.html
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2007/10/it-isnt-stopping-and-you-need-to-get.html
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UPDATE: 11 January 2009 - A new product, Allicin-C, and Alli-Derm, add to your anti-MRSA arsenal. Purchase via our link in the right column.
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More than 10 years ago this issue was repeatedly reported in the press. More than 30 years ago this was an issue discussed often by medical practitioners such as me. Thirty plus years ago doctors used to test anti-biotics in a test called 'C & S' (culture and sensitivity) not utilized too much today.
Mainstream medicine refuses to take my challenge, previously possted on this BLOG. I have added it in below for ease of reference. Maybe now someone might take a chance. Nothing to lose, and maybe save some lives along the way!...
Maybe intravenous high dose vitamin c might be tried. And at least you know this would not hurt you. This treatment saved a client of mine from liver and kidney transplant. Interferon treatments did not work and she developed liver and kidney failure. UW docs were baffled, yet they wouldn't ask...
Wash any suspicious area with pure soap and water and allow to dry thoroughly. Using
specific pure essential oils will be very effective in treating and resolving this problem. Above all
avoid the use of anti-bacterial soaps. These contain Triclosan and will kill off naturally occurring bacteria on your skin that serves to protect you from infection.
Many non-effective anti-biotics are on the market today and some of these have very serious side effects. Avoid fluoride based products for this reason.
Make sure you ask your doctor what kind of treatment is being prescribed. It is your right to know under the law.
Staph skin infections on rise in U.S.
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Medical Writer
A once-rare drug-resistant germ now appears to cause more than half of all skin infections treated in U.S. emergency rooms, say researchers who documented the superbug's startling spread in the general population.
Many victims mistakenly thought they just had spider bites that wouldn't heal, not drug-resistant staph bacteria. Only a decade ago, these germs were hardly ever seen outside of hospitals and nursing homes.
Doctors also were caught off-guard — most of them unwittingly prescribed medicines that do not work against the bacteria.
"It is time for physicians to realize just how prevalent this is," said Dr. Gregory Moran of Olive View-UCLA Medical Center, who led the study.
Another author, Dr. Rachel Gorwitz of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said: "I think no one was aware of the extent of the problem."
Skin infections can be life-threatening if bacteria get into the bloodstream. Drug-resistant strains can also cause a vicious type of pneumonia and even "flesh-eating" wounds.
The CDC paid for the study, published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. Several authors have consulted for companies that make antibiotics.
Researchers analyzed all skin infections among adults who went to hospital emergency rooms in 11 U.S. cities in August 2004. Of the 422 cases, 249, or 59 percent, were caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. Such bacteria are impervious to the penicillin family of drugs long used for treatment.
The proportion of infections due to MRSA ranged from 15 percent to as high as 74 percent in some hospitals.
"This completely matches what our experience at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital has been," said Dr. Buddy Creech, an infectious-disease specialist whose hospital was not included in the study. "Usually what we see is a mom or dad brings their child in with what they describe as a spider bite that's not getting better or a pimple that's not getting better," and it turns out to be MRSA.
The germ typically thrives in health-care settings where people have open wounds and tubes. But in recent years, outbreaks have occurred among prisoners, children and athletes, with the germ spreading through skin contact or shared items such as towels. Dozens of people in Ohio, Kentucky and Vermont recently got MRSA skin infections from tattoos.
The good news: MRSA infections contracted outside a hospital are easier to treat. The study found that several antibiotics work against them, including some sulfa drugs that have been around for decades. A separate study in the journal reports the effectiveness of Cubicin, an antibiotic recently approved to treat bloodstream infections and heart inflammation caused by MRSA.
However, doctors need to test skin infections to see what germ is causing them, and to treat each one as if it were MRSA until test results prove otherwise, researchers said.
"We have made a fundamental shift in pediatrics in our area" and now assume that every such case is the drug-resistant type, Creech said.
And, doctors need to lance the wound to get rid of bacteria rather than relying on a drug to do the job.
"The most important treatment is actually draining the pus," Gorwitz said. Many times that is a cure all by itself, she said.
The study was done in Albuquerque, N.M.; Atlanta; Charlotte, N.C.; Kansas City, Mo.; Los Angeles; Minneapolis; New Orleans; New York; Philadelphia; Phoenix; and Portland, Ore.
