Acinetobacter, Native To Iraq & Afghanistan, Spreading Resistant Strains In US Military Hospitals

[hatrack]

EDIT

It was April 2003, early in the Iraq war -- and 4 1/2 years later, scientists are still struggling to understand the medical mystery. The three cases aboard the Comfort were the first of a stubborn outbreak that has spread to at least five other American military hospitals, including Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and the Army's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.

Hundreds of patients -- the military says it has not tabulated how many -- have been infected with the bacterium in their bloodstream, cerebrospinal fluid, bones or lungs. Many of them were troops wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan; others have been civilians infected after stays in military hospitals. At least 27 people have died in military hospitals with Acinetobacter infections since 2003, although doctors are uncertain how many of the deaths were caused by the bacteria.

The rise in infections has been dramatic. In 2001 and 2002, Acinetobacter infections made up about 2% of admissions at the specialized burn unit at Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas. In 2003, the rate jumped to 6%, and then to 12% by 2005. Other military hospitals have reported similar increases.

In the early days of the war, there were so many infections in an intensive care unit on the Comfort that a nurse posted a sign: "Acinetobacter Alley." In two months, the bacterium was found in 44 of the 211 patients wounded in battle.

It was getting out of control. Petersen pleaded for help on an infectious disease mailing list. "Can anyone familiar with soil biology of Iraq or the drug-prescribing practices of the pre-regime medical system explain the severe drug resistance pattern we are seeing among our trauma victims?"

EDIT

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-sci-bacteria30sep30,1,4337207.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

[acmavm]

1. Does anyone other than myself see the fact that an enemy that we

can't see might just become our 'payback' for attacking the Middle East? It's almost something out of Edgar Allen Poe.

[lovuian]

2. I feel such empathy for our soldiers

its one thing to fight but wounded are in for the real fight for their lives

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. Poe? or H. G. Wells?

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36/36-h/36-h.htm

...

In another moment I had scrambled up the earthen rampart and stood upon its crest, and the interior of the redoubt was below me. A mighty space it was, with gigantic machines here and there within it, huge mounds of material and strange shelter places. And scattered about it, some in their overturned war-machines, some in the now rigid handling-machines, and a dozen of them stark and silent and laid in a row, were the Martians--dead!--slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared; slain as the red weed was being slain; slain, after all man's devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth.

For so it had come about, as indeed I and many men might have foreseen had not terror and disaster blinded our minds. These germs of disease have taken toll of humanity since the beginning of things--taken toll of our prehuman ancestors since life began here. But by virtue of this natural selection of our kind we have developed resisting power; to no germs do we succumb without a struggle, and to many--those that cause putrefaction in dead matter, for instance--our living frames are altogether immune. But there are no bacteria in Mars, and directly these invaders arrived, directly they drank and fed, our microscopic allies began to work their overthrow. Already when I watched them they were irrevocably doomed, dying and rotting even as they went to and fro. It was inevitable. By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain.

...

[happyslug]

12. And a repeat of history???

Cholera is first reported IN THE WEST after a British Invasion of Northern India in the early 1800 where it is believed to have been picked up by British Soldiers, who took it to India, where it was picked up by British ships back to England, Europe, the US and the rest of the world in throughout the 1800s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholera#History

[skids]

3. Are they sure they really are drug resistant?

I mean, if KBR is supplying the drugs, they are quite likely counterfeit. :shrug:

[hankthecrank]

Next you say that they gave the troops sewer water!

Oh that's right they did! supposed deliver clean water but gave troops untreated sewer water!

Charged for meals not given to troops

Charged for vehicles not damaged

Charged for goods hauled on trucks (When the trucks were empty)

The way these crooks work I'm sure that's the small stuff!

[hankthecrank]

6. Now I get two clicks for on click on the old mouse

Jim says my posts waste of space this proves him right

Not only that but now my post count is going to get to high

[Auntie Bush]

4. I wonder if all those deaths will be counted in the total number of troop deaths?

Probably not. I think if they don't die on the battlefield they aren't counted as KIA. I wonder how many soldiers really died due to this f***ing war.

[bonito]

7. I wonder if anybody has tried silver on these infections

I know first hand by EXPERIENCE that it works for many.

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. Silver? or "Nano-silver?"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/22/AR2006112201979.html

EPA to Regulate Nanoproducts Sold As Germ-Killing

By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 23, 2006; Page A01

The Environmental Protection Agency has decided to regulate a large class of consumer items made with microscopic "nanoparticles" of silver, part of a new but increasingly widespread technology that may pose unanticipated environmental risks, a government official said yesterday.

The decision -- which will affect the marketing of high-tech odor-destroying shoe liners, food-storage containers, air fresheners, washing machines and a wide range of other products that contain tiny bacteria-killing particles of silver -- marks a significant reversal in federal policy. It also creates an unexpected regulatory hurdle for the burgeoning field of nanotechnology, which involves the creation of materials just a few ten-thousandths the diameter of a human hair.

Until now, new products made with tiny germ-fighting particles of silver did not have to pass muster with regulators. That has concerned environmentalists and others who think that the growing amount of nanosilver washed down drains may be killing beneficial bacteria and aquatic organisms and may also pose risks to human health.
...

[bonito]

9. YES! its definitely a step in the right direction

In that it will provide greater exposure to it's properties, I'm aware many medicines are like a double edge sword but this has been kept under the radar way too long.
I prepare this at home for personal use and provide it to anyone free of charge for some time now it has kept my wife alive for many years, thanks for that info!

[kestrel91316]

10. If these are wound infections, they might want to try this:

The use of honey and sugar in wound management -
http://www.aislec.it/download/1262.pdf
http://www.o-wm.com/article/1006
http://www.nursing-standard.co.uk/archives/ns/vol20-10/pdfs/v20n10p5764.pdf

[bugslife]

11. Acinetobacter baumannii from Iraq

The story in the LA Times came almost completely from the military though this journalist had access to the whole story.

The military, through it's own investigation, discovered that they were the source and cause of the nosocomial spread of this bacteria in 2004. They never released the report, still have not despite having filed many FOIA's.

First, the bacteria is not native to Iraq or Afghanistan. It is a hospital aquired strain from Europe that likely hitchhiked to the Field hospital Dogwood with filthy equipment they shipped in from Germany. Like everything else about this war the medical sytem was underfunded, understaffed, and overloaded. They were never prepared for the huge number of casualties that started pouring in and have never let up.

The indescriminate use of antibiotics during this time added to the resistance of this bacteria to the drugs available to treat it.

The DoD in its usual knee-jerk reaction to it's blunders put more effort into covering this bug up than they did into containing it. Hundreds of soldiers lives and limbs have been lost to this bug that would otherwise have been saved. This is not to say that many of the military doctors and researchers have not worked hard to remedy this but they have not been allowed to talk about it or to warn anyone. Some of them have outright lied about it, likely under orders.
Acintobacter baumannii strains from Iraq have spread throughout the military medical system, to the VA medical system, and on to our civilian hospitals all across our country. These strains have grown nearly completely resistant to every antimicrobial available. The drugs they do use are highly toxic.

Wounded soldiers and contractors from 40 countries have gone through Landstuhl and may have taken this bug home with them.

Innocent civilians right here at home are dying from this bug in our hospitals and long term care facilities. Most of these deaths, like the military deaths, are reported to be caused by the problem they originally went in for.
Your local hospitals do not have to tell you what dangerous pathogens they are harbouring.

Marcie Hascall Clark
www.iraqinfections.org

[Javaman]

13. Is this related to the "baghdad boil"?

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/bate200403030923.asp

[bugslife]

14. Baghdad Boil

The Baghdad Boil is Leishmaniasis. Leishmaniasis is a parasite normally spread through the bite of a sandfly though it is also spread sexually, congenitally, and by blood transfusion. There is a ban on blood donations for people coming from Iraq and Afghanistan for one year. Leishmaniasis is known to take up to 20 years to present symptoms in an otherwise healthy person. Those in charge of the blood supply feel that the risk to the population is not great enough to make this a permanent ban. They do not test the blood for presence of the parasite.

Thousands of soldiers and contractors have brought this parasite back with them.

Acinetobacter baumannii is a bacteria.

Marcie Hascall Clark
www.iraqinfections.org