OT: Good to be back at SED

Both me and C. got a nasty intenstinal thing (but several days apart) that takes about 4 days to go away. The sort of thing that kills people in 3rd world countries where there isn't enough water, 'cause it all drains out your rear valve... reminds me, have to go get some more giant packs of jumbo rolls of kybo paper.

Take care, good to see ya back.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it\'s the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

_Volunteer_ experiments? Who would volunteer for this? How could you sell it? "Its not as bad as E. coli so you will probably survive."

They must have found some college students who really needed money.

Prisoners looking for "good behavior" credits.

Probably contaminated food got C. (maybe a bad shawarma or something), and I got it from her, judging by the time lag.

From the tap water is nigh on impossible-- it's properly treated and chlorinated and they are hypersensitive about any issues after a problem in rural small-town Ontario some years back (basically caused by the two brothers running the system bypassing the system and even deliberately hiding samples that they believed to be contaminated with e coli from farm runoff- criminal negligence which killed several people).

There's also this:-

Of course they wouldn't have statistics for younger healthy people because most of us wouldn't bother to go to a doctor.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it\'s the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

Wow.

"C.difficile infection represents one of the most common hospital (nosocomial) infections around the world. In the United States alone, it causes approximately three million cases of diarrhea and colitis per year."

Seems like the antibiotics knock out the normal flora and fauna in the intestines, so that the bad guys can easily set up shop there, with the slightest contamination.

And there seems to be plenty tiny amounts of fecal contamination in hospitals worldwide. Until these superbugs and SARS, I don't think they really have been taking it all that seriously outside of operating rooms etc.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it\'s the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

Oh, thanks, I've passed that along to someone might *ahem* find it useful in the above capacity. ;-)

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it\'s the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

Does not speak so well of the Toronto water distribution system:

QUOTE

Where does Shigella come from?

The ultimate source of Shigella bacteria is the infected excrement of a previously infected individual. That infectious material is spread to new cases by person-to-person contact or via contaminated food or water. A new case of bacillary dysentery occurs after the organism is ingested.

Shigella bacteria are in a small group of germs (that also includes E. coli O157:H7 and Cryptosporidium) that can infect the gut after the ingestion of relatively few organisms. Volunteer experiments have demonstrated that shigellosis can occur after ingestion of fewer than

200 bacteria,1 a very small amount. This is why bacillary dysentery is the most communicable of the bacterial-induced diarrheas and that is most commonly transmitted by person-to person contact.

Approximately 20% of cases of shigellosis are transmitted via contaminated food or water.2 Generally, the food preparer is the individual who contaminates the food, but food may also become contaminated previously during processing. Contamination of drinking water by Shigella is a problem that generally only occurs in the developing world.3

1. 1. DuPont HL, Levine MM, Hornick RB, et al. Inoculum size in shigellosis and implications for expected mode of transmission. J Infect Dis, 1989; 159:1126. 2. 2. Mead PS, Slutsker L, Dietz V, et al. Food-related illness and death in the United States. Emerg Infect Dis 1999;5:607-25. 3. 3. Barzilay JI, Weinberg WG, Eley JW. The Water We Drink. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 1999.

END QUOTE

Did someone vex you with ES&D? :-)))

Nah- they can get health care professionals, or students, and others interested in the experiment to volunteer. In this case they should be young- no older than 35 would be my guess, and in good health.

Which reminds me of early 20th century public health research into vitamin deficiency disease in the deep south, this was before vitamins were fully known or understood. In frustration over failure to find a pathogenic etiology, the researchers themselves took to eating controlled amounts of feces hoping to establish a link.

They don't say how that c.difficile infection results from "courses of antibiotics"- they must be talking about intravenously infused antibiotic- that's all swabbed down with alcohol. They must not be bandaging it up properly. In the US we use air and moisture proof bandaging.

Right- I have heard it is recommended to eat generous amounts of yogurt while on antibiotic... Searching for the Shigella frequency in Toronto, I found this funny piece in one of your local newspapers: "Inspot was developed by Internet Sexuality Information Services Inc., a nonprofit organization "dedicated to developing and using Internet technologies to prevent disease transmission." You go to the website, select an e-card, click on an STD and write a few lines of text. Then you enter the e-mail addresses of the sex partners you would like to notify. Cards can be sent anonymously or you can include a return e-mail address. (It doesn't even have to be your own!) I gave the site a whirl and sent anonymous notices to all of my co-workers, letting them know that they had been exposed to shigella, molluscum and nongonococchal urethritis. Based on the gasps and shrieks I heard coming from other cubicles all afternoon, BTDT, I'd say the service works. "

Hey People, ever wonder what the F*** is happening in our "1st world" society , when we start getting 3rd world type diseases in our public health system? - its the same here in Australia - maybe the "triumph of capitalism and market forces" idea has a few holes in it.......

Even engineers (a group usually not noted for their social skills or poltical acumen) should be able to work out whats wrong, and then get it fixed. So whats happening here...........?

Why hasnt it been fixed - infection control was worked out in the 18th Century......

de Andrew VK3BFA

C. difficile hit the UK tv last night, all news channels. 1000 reported cases in the 80's, up to 35000 in 2002.

Primary cause is the increase in the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics, which kill all the friendly bacteria in the gut, leaving a nice living space for the not so friendly.

Secondary causes are the increase in older people in hospital, high bed occupancy rates and the associated reduction in cleanliness, etc.

Reducing the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics requires faster turnaround of lab results to allow targetting of the correct antibiotic.

--
Tony Williams.

That bug isn't killed by an alcohol scrub iirc.

Graham

I recently completed a 15 day regimen of 24 million unit daily dose of good old fashioned penicillin and had no problems whatsoever- so I suppose it is the newer antibiotics that you need to watch.

Apparently that bacteria is ingested.

It only infects people on antibiotics because their beneficial bacteria population has been killed off or reduced. The incidence among outpatients on antibiotics is insignificantly low and this probably means the hospital environment has inadvertently provided a breeding ground for the same reason.

I read in sci.electronics.design that Andrew VK3BFA wrote (in ) about 'OT: Good to be back at SED', on Sat, 27 Aug 2005:

Yes.

People are too expensive to employ.

Because keeping things clean requires numerous people. The pay per person isn't good but there are many persons, so the overall bill is big. Then those people have to be motivated in order to keep doing a boring job conscientiously, and in many cases local trade union activists tend to apply disincentives; no Stakhanovites wanted here.

In addition, the word 'clean' naturally doesn't mean the same to people brought up in poor communities in Third World countries (who provide the bulk of the low-paid cleaner army, whether managers or in the front line), as it did to a mid-20th century hospital matron.

--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
If everything has been designed, a god designed evolution by natural selection.
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

Considering what's going on in the East with the apparently new flu, we don't do so bad in the West..