(Updated!) What you missed in Infection Prevention: December 6, 2012
1) Today's NEJM has lot's of interesting stuff. First up, they have a review of the first cases of fungal infections associated with contaminated methylprednisolone injections in Tennessee. The report covers 66 case patients with 21 having confirmed Exserohilum rostratum infection and 1 having confirmed Aspergillus fumigatus infection.
2) Next up, NEJM has a perspective piece from the FDA that highlights infections secondary to contaminated antiseptic products including iodophors, alcohol products, CHG and quaternary-ammonium compounds.
3) And finally from the NEJM, Thomas Sandora and Donald Goldmann have a perspective piece outlining their suggestions for preventing hospital outbreaks of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Most of what they offer is standard infection control dogma from the - it's the healthcare worker's fault for not washing his/her hands diatribe - to the suggestion that a "parsimonious set of interventions aimed at reducing exposure to antibiotics may have the greatest effect on resistance." They even included a table of the suggested parsimonious stewardship interventions (below). I don't believe that any are backed by more than uncontrolled quasi-experimental studies or expert opinion. (Please correct me if I'm wrong!) Might they have recommended funding studies of these interventions instead? It's hard enough to be a hospital epidemiologist in 2012 marketing the few evidence-based interventions at our disposal without laying the burden of making us defend interventions based on pure speculation on our backs. Oh well.
4) There is a report in today's Ottawa Citizen by Helen Branswell that nicely outlines two NDM-1 outbreaks that occurred (October 2011 and January 2012) in Toronto. The article covers an study published in ICHE and another in CID. The latter described the transmission of the NDM-1 between E. coli and Klebsiella species in the same patient.
5) Last-but-not-least, check out this story in NPR that highlighted an innovative research study out of Michigan State University. Researchers modeled the spread of murders in Newark, NJ as an infectious disease and discovered that murder appears to be transmissible like an infectious pathogen. They are now figuring out why some neighborhoods are more resistant to homicide and how they might "vaccinate" populations to reduce murder. Pretty cool and Go Sparty!
2) Next up, NEJM has a perspective piece from the FDA that highlights infections secondary to contaminated antiseptic products including iodophors, alcohol products, CHG and quaternary-ammonium compounds.
3) And finally from the NEJM, Thomas Sandora and Donald Goldmann have a perspective piece outlining their suggestions for preventing hospital outbreaks of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Most of what they offer is standard infection control dogma from the - it's the healthcare worker's fault for not washing his/her hands diatribe - to the suggestion that a "parsimonious set of interventions aimed at reducing exposure to antibiotics may have the greatest effect on resistance." They even included a table of the suggested parsimonious stewardship interventions (below). I don't believe that any are backed by more than uncontrolled quasi-experimental studies or expert opinion. (Please correct me if I'm wrong!) Might they have recommended funding studies of these interventions instead? It's hard enough to be a hospital epidemiologist in 2012 marketing the few evidence-based interventions at our disposal without laying the burden of making us defend interventions based on pure speculation on our backs. Oh well.
4) There is a report in today's Ottawa Citizen by Helen Branswell that nicely outlines two NDM-1 outbreaks that occurred (October 2011 and January 2012) in Toronto. The article covers an study published in ICHE and another in CID. The latter described the transmission of the NDM-1 between E. coli and Klebsiella species in the same patient.
5) Last-but-not-least, check out this story in NPR that highlighted an innovative research study out of Michigan State University. Researchers modeled the spread of murders in Newark, NJ as an infectious disease and discovered that murder appears to be transmissible like an infectious pathogen. They are now figuring out why some neighborhoods are more resistant to homicide and how they might "vaccinate" populations to reduce murder. Pretty cool and Go Sparty!
I have not enjoyed reading anything so much since I found out that My wife's great, great grandfather was prosecuted at the Old Bailey in London for attempting to murder her great great grandmother.
ReplyDeleteHe must have been acquitted, as he went off to be a slave overseer in Jamaica.
I shook my head sadly, "It's all in the genes. The women in your family can annoy any man beyond belief."