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November 19, 2007
A strange
convergence of news stories this past week has come and gone like
ships passing in the night, causing no ripples, leaving no wake. On
the surface, all is calm. Down deep, strong currents pull toward
inevitable disaster.
More than 1
million cases of Chlamydia were reported in the United States last
year. Federal health officials state this is the greatest number ever
of reported cases for a sexually transmitted disease (STD).
What would
generally generate alarm, though, is being soft-pedaled by the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). We are told this “may not
be all bad news.” We are not victims of a disease, the CDC says, but
instead are victims of reporting of the disease.
Based on their
analysis, we have the CDC to thank for these new higher levels of
Chlamydia infection. For more than 10 years, they have recommended
annual screening for sexually active women, focusing on teens and
young adults ages 15 to 25.
As good as our
testing might be, Dr. John M. Douglas Jr. at the CDC admits to
Associated Press that it leaves something to be desired. “As many as
2.8 million new cases may actually be occurring each year,” Dr.
Douglas states, a fact that appears almost as a throwaway footnote
buried in the story.
Buried under
this throwaway footnote is another story. Rates of the STD gonorrhea
are also soaring, with two consecutive years of increases. But the
biggest part of the story has yet to appear in bold headlines.
In 2006, a
surveillance project in 28 cities found that 14 percent of the
reported gonorrhea cases were resistant to ciprofloxacin and other
antibiotics used to treat it. This rate is up from the 9 percent in
2005, which was itself also up from the 7 percent in 2004. Up, up,
up…and the CDC responds in April…advising doctors “to stop using those
drugs against gonorrhea.”
The rise of a
superbug for gonorrhea doesn’t appear to fluster the CDCs own Dr.
Douglas, though. After all, “it doesn’t look like the superbugs are
the reason for gonorrhea’s escalating numbers overall.” What is?
Well, Dr. Douglas and his colleagues are “not sure what is driving the
increase.”
Meanwhile,
across the country in the Reno Gazette-Journal, a new study on
Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, shows that this
superbug and the deaths it causes may exceed deaths caused by AIDS.
Dr. Steven Althoff managed to diagnose and treat 4-year-old Jordan
Roberts just in time. She lived. But Dr. Althoff has seen a
five-fold increase of MRSA cases in the last year.
And out of
Atlanta, U.S. health officials told AP that “a mutated version of a
common cold virus has caused 10 deaths in the last 18 months.” Again,
“CDC officials don’t consider the mutation to be a cause for alarm for
most people.” It’s just as well. Alarm, in this case, will do no
good since “there are no good antiviral medications for adenoviruses.”
Three news
stories this week. Superbugs. Bacterium and viruses resistant to
drugs. But we are told not to worry.
What are we to
do? Get tested? Be informed? Know we have the disease? And then
what? Well, at least, we know what we are not to do. Don’t worry.
Three news
stories this week. Superbugs. The CDC twists in the wind, letting
ships run a collision course in the night, turning off the early
warning system, and massaging us back to sleep.
You may have a
deadly cold, a MRSA infection or a gonorrhea infection. But the germs
are not the culprits. We are victims of knowledge, of knowing what
ails us. Now go back to sleep. There’s nothing to worry about.
**********
May 15, 2006
Centers for Disease Confusion
May 22, 2006 CDC:
One Eye Closed
July 17, 2006
Curing a Disease that Wasn't
See Archives
for past editorials.
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