Does hospital cleanliness play a role in MRSA?
Sadly, yes. It’s amazing to realize that something as simple as washing hands regularly is a challenge for health care workers, but it’s true: Study after study shows that the rate of hand-washing hovers around 50% unless hospitals work on it consistently and hard. In addition, there’s a ferocious debate in health care over the best way to control hospital infections. Researchers have demonstrated you can control transmission in a hospital by checking patients at admission to see if they are unknowingly carrying bugs such as MRSA — many European countries do this. But others contend it’s too expensive, doesn’t detect all problematic bacteria, or is too vulnerable to lobbying by the companies that make the tests. And federal health authorities haven’t provided any leadership to settle the dispute. What about the role of animals? At least 70 percent of antibiotics used in the United States every year — some estimates say more than 80 percent — are given to food animals, not to people. Li
