A killer hospitals pretend to fight

Category: Virus Killer

Its hard to know which is worse, the dying or the lying.

Four times as many people are dying from a hospital infection called C. diff as a decade ago, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its the No. 1 hospital-infection killer in much of the nation, including New York. It kills more people than dreaded Staph infections, and about as many as AIDS.

What about the lying? Well, hospital personnel often tell patients and families that antibiotics are to blame. Sorry: The real culprit is inadequate cleaning in hospitals.

C. diff spreads through the hospital on nurses uniforms, wheelchairs, bed sheets, call buttons and other surfaces. It can survive on surfaces for months. Patients touch these surfaces, then pick up food without washing their hands first, and swallow the germ along with their food. Once in the gastro-intestinal tract, C. diff can cause severe diarrhea, sometimes resulting in deadly complications.

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A killer hospitals pretend to fight

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May 2nd, 2012
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