And this out right after the 'smelly flatus may decrease BP' story:
Bloomberg.com: Science
Oct. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Influenza outbreaks can help pave the way for drug-resistant intestinal infections that kill hospital and nursing home patients by spurring unnecessary antibiotic use, scientists said.
Annual peaks in U.S. cases of Clostridium difficile, a drug-resistant germ that works in the gut, consistently trail major influenza outbreaks by about one to two months, said Philip Polgreen, an infectious disease expert at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Flu cases are often mistakenly treated with antibiotics, which can raise the risk of C. difficile in some people, he said.
Researchers and health officials have discouraged the overuse of antibiotics, because it increases the likelihood that drugs will lose their overall effectiveness to certain germ strains. The link between influenza and C. difficile suggests the inappropriate flu treatment may contribute directly patients' drug-resistance and death, said Polgreen, who presented his results today at a conference in Washington.
"If you treat your patients with antibiotics that aren't needed, C. difficile may be an unintended consequence for that patient,'' he said Oct. 23 in a telephone interview. "It's more than a risk to society, it could happen to that very same person.''
Seasonal influenza normally sweeps across the U.S. in late winter and early spring, killing more than 30,000 people on its own, according the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Last year, Polgreen published an investigation of a 2003 hospital outbreak of C. difficile that occurred right after flu season.
In that study, 15 patients got the drug-resistant infection and five of them died. While 13 patients of the original 15 had been treated with antibiotics for bacterial pneumonia, Polgreen's investigation showed that none of them was likely to have that disease, he said.
The patients probably had influenza, a viral disease that can be prevented with vaccines made by Sanofi-Aventis SA, of Paris, London-based GlaxoSmithKline Plc and other companies. It is treated with Tamiflu, made by Roche Holding AG of Basel, Switzerland, and Glaxo's Relenza. Instead, antibiotic treatment can kill protective bacteria in the human gut, and allow drug- resistant C. difficile to flourish.
"I saw several people die of C. difficile after getting treatment for a disease they didn't have,'' Polgreen said. "I started thinking, this is probably happening all over the country.''
Bloomberg.com: Science
Oct. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Influenza outbreaks can help pave the way for drug-resistant intestinal infections that kill hospital and nursing home patients by spurring unnecessary antibiotic use, scientists said.
Annual peaks in U.S. cases of Clostridium difficile, a drug-resistant germ that works in the gut, consistently trail major influenza outbreaks by about one to two months, said Philip Polgreen, an infectious disease expert at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Flu cases are often mistakenly treated with antibiotics, which can raise the risk of C. difficile in some people, he said.
Researchers and health officials have discouraged the overuse of antibiotics, because it increases the likelihood that drugs will lose their overall effectiveness to certain germ strains. The link between influenza and C. difficile suggests the inappropriate flu treatment may contribute directly patients' drug-resistance and death, said Polgreen, who presented his results today at a conference in Washington.
"If you treat your patients with antibiotics that aren't needed, C. difficile may be an unintended consequence for that patient,'' he said Oct. 23 in a telephone interview. "It's more than a risk to society, it could happen to that very same person.''
Seasonal influenza normally sweeps across the U.S. in late winter and early spring, killing more than 30,000 people on its own, according the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Last year, Polgreen published an investigation of a 2003 hospital outbreak of C. difficile that occurred right after flu season.
In that study, 15 patients got the drug-resistant infection and five of them died. While 13 patients of the original 15 had been treated with antibiotics for bacterial pneumonia, Polgreen's investigation showed that none of them was likely to have that disease, he said.
The patients probably had influenza, a viral disease that can be prevented with vaccines made by Sanofi-Aventis SA, of Paris, London-based GlaxoSmithKline Plc and other companies. It is treated with Tamiflu, made by Roche Holding AG of Basel, Switzerland, and Glaxo's Relenza. Instead, antibiotic treatment can kill protective bacteria in the human gut, and allow drug- resistant C. difficile to flourish.
"I saw several people die of C. difficile after getting treatment for a disease they didn't have,'' Polgreen said. "I started thinking, this is probably happening all over the country.''