MRSA in Schools

In this story from Newsday, we learn about another drug resistant bacteria, C. diff, or Clostridium difficile.

Robert Maltby, a self described “health nut” who ran 40 to 50 miles a day came down with it, and ended up losing his large intestine.

Even though he was treated at two hospitals, Maltby remembers little after his wife, Sandi, urged him to seek emergency care. He lost consciousness. “They really didn’t take care of him at the first hospital,” Sandi Maltby said.

Yet again, we see that a hospital is unable to diagnose this.

Doctors, she said, had no idea what ailed her husband, who had been suffering from profuse diarrhea. She and her daughter, a physician’s assistant, had him transferred to North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset.

According to the medical specialists in the article, C. diff is following in the footsteps of MRSA, moving from hospitals out into the community, and developing drug resistance.

Like staph, it can reside dormant in healthy people for years. Mutant strains can release toxins that can inflame the intestines and cause death.

Maltby had a minor procedure done that required antibiotics. His doctors told him the antibiotics killed all the bacteria in his intestinal tract except for C. diff, which then had free reign.

Another reason to look past “surface” solutions to underlying causes, and immune system health:

At a time when the public is just becoming familiar with MRSA, hospitals remain entrenched in a decades-long battle against a veritable zoo of microbes.

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