MRSA: from hospital pathogen to community scourge

Busy day here, but I do have a brief post up on MRSA over at Correlations if you're looking for some reading material.

[Edited to add: Mike has a lot more new MRSA stuff here; well worth reading!]

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Check it out over at Donorcycle. And while you're thinking about blog carnivals, don't forget to send a post along to Jen (jshoener AT princeton DOT edu) at Science Matters for the upcoming edition of Animalcules. [Edited to add: Pediatrics Grand Rounds is looking for submissions, too...]

So where is the evidence that methicillin resistance in MRSA
means the resistant staph was the result of over-prescription of prior antibiotics ?

By McKiernan (not verified) on 18 Oct 2007 #permalink

You mean the original mutation? Or the spread of the resistance?

What I'm searching for, is, why cannot there be virulent strains of staph., resistant to methicillin not caused by prior antibiotic interference and, whether that contamination cannot come from exogenous sources introduced into hospital settings ?

By McKiernan (not verified) on 18 Oct 2007 #permalink

Like with all the bio-science ppl coming through this blog, and no one has an answer ?

By McKiernan (not verified) on 21 Oct 2007 #permalink

What I'm searching for, is, why cannot there be virulent strains of staph., resistant to methicillin not caused by prior antibiotic interference and, whether that contamination cannot come from exogenous sources introduced into hospital settings ?

I don't think its that prior antibiotics cause mutations but in the absence of antibiotic there would be no selection for the resistant bacteria to outgrowth the sensitive bacteria.

Thank you, Dale, its a start.

By McKiernan (not verified) on 23 Oct 2007 #permalink