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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: zeta1961 who wrote (151510)	11/5/2008 9:14:47 AM
From: twmoore	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 360844

I wonder if the 3-4 ladies that posted here will ever be back.I think that all of them leaned towards McCain.

To: zeta1961 who wrote (151510)	11/5/2008 9:34:04 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 360844

Michael Moore on CNN's Larry King Live talking about Obama tonight <eom>.

To: zeta1961 who wrote (151510)	11/11/2008 7:29:10 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 360844

Infections With Drug-Resistant Intestinal Bug Accelerating By John Lauerman Nov. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Deadly, diarrhea-causing germs are making hospital patients sick at an accelerating rate, researchers said today at a conference in Orlando. About 13 of every 1,000 hospital patients are infected with or are carrying the potentially fatal bug, called Clostridium difficile, on any one day, said William Jarvis, a researcher who led the study for the Association of Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, at the group's annual conference. Federal health officials said that rate is consistent with estimates that infections have risen to about half a million people this year, and suggests that hospital infections increased by nearly one-third since 2004. The study, the first to take one-day snapshots of this problem in hospitals, shows the seriousness of C. difficile, which can cause diarrhea and a potentially fatal inflammation in older patients and those with weaker immune systems, said Jarvis, a former U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention epidemiologist. Every day, more than 7,000 patients are being treated for the disease at a cost of $18 million to $52 million, he said. ``The burden of C. difficile is much greater than anyone had expected,'' Jarvis, who is also president of Jason and Jarvis Associates, a health consulting firm, said yesterday in a telephone interview. Snapshot Taken Jarvis asked 12,000 members of the infection control group to collect data on patients with C. difficile in their hospitals for one day from May to August 2008. The result is a national snapshot of the disease across hospital wards and services, he said. The results closely mirror CDC's estimate that as many as 500,000 people are infected with C. difficile each year, said Cliff McDonald, a CDC epidemiologist in the division of health care quality promotion. The agency had estimated 291,000 hospital stays from the germ in 2005, and 134,000 in 2000. ``This is confirmatory of our thinking that this is a large and growing problem,'' he said in a telephone interview. More than half of patients with the disease, 54 percent, had been in the hospital for less than 48 hours, the study found. That suggests that many patients may have acquired the infection before being hospitalized, said Philip Polgreen, a University of Iowa infectious disease specialist in Iowa City. ``Historically that would be very unusual, because C. difficile is something you usually get in the hospital,'' he said yesterday in a telephone interview. ``We need to start thinking about C. difficile at the time of admission, before it can spread to other patients.'' Germ Not Easily Killed C. difficile can form spores that are difficult to kill on hospital surfaces, except with strong agents such as bleach, said Carolyn Gould, also a CDC medical epidemiologist. The agency is working with the Ohio Hospital Association on a project to find better ways of preventing the germ from spreading, she said. Patients usually develop C. difficile after they're treated with conventional antibiotics, wiping out other gut germs and allowing the drug-resistant infection to flourish, she said. Better hospital cleaning and cutting the unnecessary use of antibiotics are both needed to fight C. difficile, she said in a telephone interview. To contact the reporter on this story: John Lauerman in Boston at jlauerman@bloomberg.net. Last Updated: November 11, 2008 00:01 EST