January 15th, 2008
MRSA still vulnerable to soap
In all the growing excitement over MRSA, the “deadly,” “flesh-eating” bacteria which the media is turning into another “gay plague,” one very important point is being almost systematically ignored.
It’s still vulnerable to soap. Simple lye-based soap. Wash your hands and, if you’ve been using the rest of yourself, wash that, too. Especially the naughty bits.
(Pictured, with apologies to Zathura producer Peter Billingsley, is the wrong way to administer this treatment. But I couldn’t help myself.)
The biggest real “scandal” concerning MRSA is that the infection is not being accurately tracked, a bit of ignorance which can easily lead to panic.
And panic is where we’re rapidly headed here, especially with headlines like “MRSA kills more people than AIDS.”
In many ways we’re going back to the earliest days of modern medicine, when Lister was a man instead of a mouthwash. (Complete with the patent medicines.)
The last century has seen a flood of “wonder drugs” enter the market, but the bugs have evolved to beat many of them, and it’s time to return to basics.
Soap kills germs. Simple aspirin will treat many pains. You can either treat a cold aggressively and get better in 14 days or just wait 2 weeks.
In many ways your grandmother was right. Both my kids’ grandmothers are still with us, both well into their 80s. I like to think it’s because of their simple wisdom.
More of that, please.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist since 1978, and has covered technology since 1982. He launched the Interactive Age Daily, the first daily coverage of the Internet to launch with a magazine, in September 1994. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 01/15/08
