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[Shammu]

'Superbugs' spread fear far and wide
Updated 5/11/2006 7:41 AM ET
By Anita Manning, USA TODAY
On Christmas night, 14-month-old Bryce Smith came down with pneumonia caused by a drug-resistant staph infection called MRSA. His father, Scott Smith, says Bryce's pediatrician told him and his wife, Katie, that the baby had a cold and that they shouldn't worry.

By the time they took Bryce to the hospital a week later, the infection had eaten a hole in his lung, and doctors warned the parents that they were not certain he'd live.

Bryce, back at home and healthy again after 55 days in the hospital, is one of thousands of children and adults who have been infected by MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a bug once found only in hospitals or nursing homes. They are victims of a dangerous newer strain of MRSA that is raging across the country, spreading through communities.

It is causing infections from abscesses to deadly blood poisoning, bone infections and pneumonia, often in the young and the fit, including professional football players, high school athletes and previously healthy children.

Whether it spread from the hospital into the community or developed as a separate strain outside the hospital is a mystery, says John McGowan, professor of epidemiology at Emory University. But recent genome studies suggest the MRSA strain circulating in the community is significantly different from the strains that are typically found in hospitals.

"There are differences in the sequence of the community strain that may make it more virulent, more able to affect people with (healthy immune systems), and with biological differences that make it spread readily," he says.

MRSA has become so common that in many hospitals more than half of all staph infections tested are drug-resistant. That's changing the way doctors treat these common infections.

"When a patient comes in with a staph infection, we assume it's resistant until proven otherwise," says pediatrician Sheldon Kaplan of Texas Children's Hospital in Houston, where MRSA rates have gone from 33% of all staph tested in 2000 to 75%.

Drug-resistant bugs, including MRSA and several others that are emerging in hospitals, are more difficult to treat, requiring stronger antibiotics that are more costly and in some cases have to be given intravenously.

Few new drugs on the way

Few major pharmaceutical companies have new medicines in the pipeline that target the drug-resistant organisms, says George Talbot of the Infectious Diseases Society of America's task force on anti-microbial availability.

"In a number of these companies, there were active decisions taken that antibiotic research was not going to be profitable enough to meet their obligation to shareholders," says Talbot, an infectious-disease specialist and consultant to drug companies. "So they decided to go for drugs that would be taken for a lifetime — drugs for diabetes or high blood pressure — rather than drugs to be taken for a week."

Jumping into the breach are smaller biotech companies that are doing the basic research to identify promising new drugs, he says, "but it's not clear yet that these smaller companies will have the development expertise or financial wherewithal to bring them to market."

In some cases, small companies form partnerships with larger, wealthier drug companies that underwrite the costs of large-scale studies and marketing, he says, "but those deals have to be done in areas where the larger companies perceive an economic benefit."

MRSA, for instance, offers a large market because it is affecting so many people and several antibiotics can be used against it. For lesser-known drug-resistant germs, the treatment options are fewer.

MRSA has been known in hospitals since the 1970s, but in recent years, new strains, which doctors call community-acquired MRSA, have infected people outside health care settings. One of these strains, known as USA300, was identified in 2000 and has been found in at least 21 states.

"What we're seeing is the emergence of a new epidemic strain of the MRSA in the community," says Daniel Jernigan, medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The CDC has reported on the new community strain since 2000, and it reported in March that the strain had caused outbreaks in hospital nurseries in Chicago and Los Angeles. Nine of the 22 infected babies required hospitalization. Other studies have reported longer hospital stays and higher death rates in MRSA-infected patients.

Staph aureus is the most common cause of the estimated 12 million skin infections each year in the USA, Jernigan says. A study in 2003 found that about one-third of people carry staph in their noses and just under 1% of people carry MRSA. Most carry the bacteria without becoming ill.

"We think the number of people carrying MRSA is increasing," Jernigan says, but the new studies are not yet completed.

It's not certain how common MRSA infections are. A CDC study based on hospital discharge data estimates that in 1999-2000, nearly 126,000 people were hospitalized each year for MRSA infections, a rate of nearly 4 per 1,000 hospital discharges.

Another study of 11 emergency rooms across the country found that almost 60% of skin abscesses tested were caused by MRSA, Jernigan says.

The new super-strain of MRSA has been concentrated in geographic regions, including California, Texas and Georgia, but Kaplan says that is changing. "It's in Pittsburgh, Memphis, St. Louis, Omaha. It's becoming more common on the East Coast now. It's literally all over the country."

University of California researchers who sequenced the genome of USA300 reported in the March 4 issue of The Lancet that the strain contains genes that make it hardy and able to cause "unusually invasive disease" such as severe blood infections and necrotizing pneumonia, in which lung tissue is destroyed.

Community-acquired MRSA has sidelined athletes, including players with the Washington Redskins, St. Louis Rams and San Francisco 49ers, as well as dozens of high school and college football players, wrestlers and basketball players. It has broken out in prisons, military bases and day care centers, anywhere there is crowding, poor hygiene and broken skin.

You don't have to be in a gym or a jail to be at risk. "You just have to be living," Kaplan says.

"This is not a superbug from a locker room; it's just out in the community," Kaplan says. "We've got 1,700 kids coming into our hospital with staph infections. They're not playing football. They're babies. Why this has been happening over the last 10 years vs. 20 years ago, we don't know."

Cont'd next post.

[Shammu]

Barriers breaking down

Strains of MRSA that have been known in hospitals for decades still account for most of the cases. Until a few years ago, says CDC epidemiologist John Jernigan (no relation to Daniel Jernigan), "MRSA was almost exclusively associated with hospitals." The types in the community are genetically different from those found in hospitals, he says, but that line is blurring.

"There used to be this very sharp distinction. However, we have the sense that more and more those strains associated with the community are finding their way into the hospital and causing health care-associated infections."

MRSA spreads through skin-to-skin contact and can be passed by using shared objects, such as razors or towels. It frequently hits more than one person in a family, and researchers in Canada have found that pets and their human owners can pass it back and forth.

"We're seeing transmission of MRSA from people to pets and pets to people," says researcher Scott Weese of the Ontario Veterinary College at the University of Guelph. "It raises the question: Can animals be a reservoir and play a role in this ping-ponging in households?"

He says dogs, cats, rabbits and ferrets have been found carrying the USA300 strain. As in people, it can cause serious skin infections and other illnesses.

"It shows pets are mimicking what's going on in the human situation," Weese says. "We're seeing more transmission in households than in the past."

Until their son was diagnosed, Bryce's parents had never heard of MRSA.

"Never heard of it, never even thought a little bacteria could do something like this," says Scott Smith, who owns a machine shop near their home in Santee, Calif., outside San Diego.

It's unclear how Bryce caught the bug, but his parents believe he may have picked it up while they were out Christmas shopping.

The family's ordeal started with a simple cold. Bryce was having sniffles a couple of days before Christmas, but on Christmas night, his parents saw he was breathing rapidly, and they worried that he might have asthma.

They called their pediatrician, who saw them two days later, dismissed the ailment as a simple viral infection and told the parents, "I've seen this a million times."

But as the days passed, the baby's condition worsened. The parents called the doctor two more times. "He said, 'You guys are new parents,' " and he told them not to worry so much.

Finally, in the early hours of New Year's Day, "we looked at him, and I said, 'I'm afraid if I go to sleep he won't be alive in the morning,' " Smith says. "We rushed him to the hospital."

At Children's Hospital of San Diego, "it was almost like a movie script," he says. A nurse tested Bryce's blood oxygen level, and "within 30 seconds they had 10 people on him."

'Just eating away' at him

Doctors said the infection had solidified in Bryce's right lung, and surgery was needed right away to clear the lung. "They had five chest tubes in him, because the infection was not only inside the lungs but outside the lungs and just eating away at his chest."

For 12 days, the Smiths didn't know whether Bryce would make it.

Then he was put on a breathing machine. He was put into a drug-induced coma and given intravenous vancomycin, a drug that is known as the last line of defense against MRSA.

The drug is "like fire going through the veins," Smith says. "With Bryce, at that point they had him asleep, and he was asleep for six weeks, so I feel lucky that he didn't have to feel the pain of vancomycin."

Today, Bryce is almost back to normal, but Smith says he and his wife won't let anyone touch him without washing their hands first.

"I felt so guilty," he says. "What keeps going through my mind is that as my son laid there at the house, we were literally watching him die and we didn't know."

'Superbugs' spread fear far and wide

[Soldier4Christ]

Java volcano evacuation ordered

Indonesia's vice president has ordered the evacuation of some 17,000 people living near a volcano, which has been threatening to erupt for weeks.

Jusuf Kalla's order came as he toured the slopes of Mount Merapi on the island of Java.

The volcano has recently been spewing more lava and smoke, and scientists say that an eruption is imminent.

But the threat level has not been raised to the highest alert - a move which would trigger a mass evacuation.

"I ask that immediate safety steps are taken, beginning by taking at least 50% of the total population from the danger zone," Mr Kalla was quoted as saying by Indonesia's state-run Antara news agency.

Mr Kalla - who also heads the country's emergency situations board - said an eruption was only a matter of time.

He was speaking during a visit to Magelang and Sleman - the two districts around the slopes of the rumbling volcano in central Java.

Mr Kalla flew over the mountain, and later met some of the people already evacuated from their homes.

Mount Merapi, overlooking the ancient city of Jogjakarta, is on Orange Code - the second highest alert level.

At least 60 people were killed in Mount Merapi's last major eruption in 1994.

It is one of the most active of at least 129 volcanoes in Indonesia.

The country is part of the Pacific "Ring of Fire" - a series of volcanoes and fault lines stretching from the western hemisphere through Japan and South East Asia.

One of Mount Merapi's deadliest eruptions was in 1930, killing about 1,300 people.

[nChrist]

Dreamweaver Said:

Then he was put on a breathing machine. He was put into a drug-induced coma and given intravenous vancomycin, a drug that is known as the last line of defense against MRSA.

The drug is "like fire going through the veins," Smith says. "With Bryce, at that point they had him asleep, and he was asleep for six weeks, so I feel lucky that he didn't have to feel the pain of vancomycin."

Brother, This is what I had in my spine in 1998 that crippled me. Vancomycin is also what they used to save my life, so I can definitely say that it is like liquid fire. The article doesn't mention that many IV drug abusers on the street are carriers of MRSA. Anything I would say about this is just an opinion, but I actually think that IV drug abusers might be responsible for the strains of MRSA that they say are community acquired, rather than acquired in the hospital. This is just another example of the high cost of drug abuse in our society IN MY OPINION. I read quite a bit about MRSA acquired in a hospital setting, and it used to involve long-term invasive procedures that brought hospital equipment in contact with blood. However, things have changed now, and the infection can be acquired fairly easily in the community. If you think about it, IV drug abusers in the community do have long term exposure between needles and blood, usually in very nasty settings and/or with used and shared needles.

The best prevention techniques now involve protecting the first natural barrier to infection, THE SKIN. Broken skin or a cut makes the infection MUCH more easy to get. SO, cleaning a cut or broken skin and covering it while it heals is a great way to avoid this deadly infection in public. It is common for drug abusers to have open sores, and those sores many times represent a way to transmit MRSA. Some of these drug abusers are carriers of MRSA for years and they never get seriously ill themselves. BUT, they infect many others who do get seriously ill.

I'm sure this is just one example of MRSA acquired in the community, but I know this one is real and extremely dangerous.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Romans 8:26-27 NASB  In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

[Soldier4Christ]

Cause of rising deadly infections puzzle experts
Drug-resistant bugs increasingly killing otherwise healthy patients

The cause of increasing rare but deadly bacterial infections, including a handful of cases in women who have taken the controversial RU-486 abortion pill, is still unclear and needs further study, U.S. health experts said on Thursday.

Two sometimes fatal bugs — Clostridium sordellii and Clostridium difficile — are a particular worry as antibiotic resistance grows and infections occur in people usually not at risk, doctors and researchers said.

While infections have been reported in drug users, surgical patients and accident victims, including men, cases in women who took RU-486 drew the most scrutiny at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Atlanta headquarters.

Officials from the CDC, Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health sought input from outside experts on what research and tracking systems are needed.

Paul Seligman, FDA associate director for safety policy, said it was not clear what is causing the spike.

“What we do know is that in this country we are seeing the simultaneous emergence of two virulent, often fatal illnesses affecting otherwise healthy people,” he said.

More than 200,000 Clostridium difficile cases occur each year in the United States, experts said. The diarrhea-causing disease is usually manageable but has recently become more difficult to treat.

Clostridium sordellii is far more rare and previously was not known to be toxic. “Over the past few years the picture has changed,” Seligman told the panelists.

Drawing the most scrutiny were cases involving RU-486.

The drug, made by Danco Laboratories LLC, is taken with another called misoprostol early in pregnancy to trigger an abortion. It is not related to emergency contraception.

Six women who took RU-486, also known as Mifeprex or mifepristone, have died since 2000. Four died from Clostridium infection, one was ruled unrelated, and the other is still being investigated. Officials have not directly linked the deaths to the drug.

The CDC on Thursday said it was investigating another fatal case involving a woman who took misoprostol as part of an abortion procedure. Another fatal infection following medical abortion has yet to be confirmed.

Ten other deadly infections have been reported in women who had given birth or who had miscarriages.

Complex situation
Several women’s groups and others RU-486 supporters said the infections needed more study, while abortion opponents said the data showed the pill was too risky to stay on the market.

Monty Patterson, whose daughter Holly died from an infection after taking the drug and is the namesake of a U.S. bill to ban it, called for research to “explore the possible causal relationship.”

Two experts also questioned the pill. University of Colorado Health Sciences Center gynecologist James McGregor urged officials to “reduce or eliminate” Mifeprex use.

Overall, panelists encouraged further study, especially on women. “We clearly need controlled trials,” said Dale Gerding of Hines Veterans Affairs Hospital in Illinois.

Most also said limited government data made tracking infections tough and urged better reporting systems.

It was not immediately clear what action the FDA might take regarding RU-486 or if officials would suggest use of antibiotics to prevent infection.

FDA’s Deputy Director of the Office of New Drugs Sandra Kweder said the meeting showed “the picture is much more complicated” than the cases involving the abortion pill.

“This is a far more complex medical and epidemiological situation than originally might have appeared to be the case, and we’ll be trying to factor that into any actions that we take,” she said afterward.

[Soldier4Christ]

Snowpack keeps roads closed near volcano

Even though Johnston Ridge Observatory has reopened, road access to other parts of Mount St. Helens will likely be delayed because of heavy snowpack.

A recent snow survey at Mount St. Helens recorded a heavier than average snowpack, 137 percent of normal, around the volcano. On April 25, between 90 and 100 inches of snow was measured at Bear Meadow and Windy Ridge along Road 99 northeast of the volcano. There was 100 inches of snow on Road 25 at Elk Pass. On the south side, there was 68 inches on snow on Road 83 near Lava Canyon and 50 to 60 inches of snow along Road 81 near Merrill Lake.

The snowpack is very dense, 40 to 50 percent water content. Depending on weather, it could take weeks to melt.

“The heavy accumulation of snow will mean that access to remove fallen trees and prepare our roads and facilities for the visitor season will be much later than normal,” Tom Mulder, Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument manager, said in a news release. “It may be early July before Road 99 and Windy Ridge are open.”

Detailed snow depth information and site maps are available at www.or.nrcs.usda.gov/snow/maps/sthelens.html. Look for the map and data links for the Mount St. Helens Intensive Snow Survey of April 25.

[Soldier4Christ]

Huge rock breaks off St. Helens' rising fin


The sheer rock fin emerging in Mount St. Helens' crater lost about a third of its northern face recently, but because lava keeps pushing to the surface, the height remained the same Thursday -- around 330 feet.

A burst of seismic activity at the mountain Sunday night likely corresponded to the collapse.

"Certainly a big piece fell off -- something like 65,000 cubic yards," said geologist Dan Dzurisin at the Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Wash., about 50 miles from the mountain.

Bad weather had iced over scientists' cameras on the rim of the volcano, so the rockfall wasn't recorded on film, he said.

Now the fin is about the same height as it was before, but rock that was previously in the middle is now at the top.

"At that height, it becomes unstable and ... begins to collapse under gravity," he said. Boulders and finer rubble from the crumbling top surround the base of the fin.

This is the seventh rock feature formed by lava in the crater since the 8,364-foot mountain reawakened with a drumfire of low-level seismic activity in September 2004.

The crater was formed by the volcano's deadly May 18, 1980, eruption, which killed 57 people and blasted about 1,300 feet off the then-9,677-foot peak.

The most recent lava feature started growing in mid-October, Dzurisin said.

The emerging rock takes different shapes depending on what it meets at the surface. At the moment, it's like toothpaste coming out of a tube.

[Soldier4Christ]

Strong earthquake jolts Indonesia's Sumatra, Jakarta

Jakarta - A strong earthquake rocked the Indonesian province of Lampung in South Sumatra and the Indonesian capital Jakarta Friday afternoon, causing some damage, but there were no immediate reports of injuries, a meteorological official said.

The 5.6-magnitude tremblor struck Lampung province, on the southern end of Sumatra, at about 3:16 p.m. (0816 GMT), said Agung, an official at Jakarta's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG).

Agung, who like many Indonesians uses only one names, said the earthquake's epicentre was in the Strait of Sunda, between the Indonesia's Java and Sumatra islands, about 160 kilometres west of Jakarta. It occured at about 14 kilometres beneath the seabed.

'We have received reports from Kalianda district of Lampung province that some terrace roofs were collapsed,' Agung said, but added that there were no immediate reports of injuries.

The tremblors also were felt in many coastal towns in West Java's Banten province, Lampung, as well as in the capital Jakarta.

It was the latest in a series of earthquakes to jolt Indonesia in recent weeks. The vast archipelago nation is located in the Pacific volcanic belt known as the 'Ring of Fire,' where earthquakes and volcanoes are commonplace.

In December 2004, a massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake triggered gigantic tidal waves inland, devastating tens of thousands of homes and buildings along Aceh's coastline on the northern end of Sumatra, leaving more than 167,000 people either dead or missing.

[Soldier4Christ]

Small Earthquake Rocks Northwest Ohio



LIMA, Ohio -- Authorities said a small earthquake shook part of northwest Ohio for a few seconds Thursday night but didn't cause any damage.

Mike Hansen, coordinator of the Ohio Seismic Network, said the quake was centered about eight miles west of Lima and had a preliminary magnitude of 2.8. It struck just before 10 p.m.

The Allen County sheriff's office said there are no reports of injuries.

Hansen said the quake happened in the Anna Seismic Zone, named for the town of Anna in Shelby County. He said that zone has been quiet in recent years, although it's traditionally Ohio's most active area for earthquakes.

This is not the first quake in Ohio this year. Hansen said seven small quakes have struck northeast Ohio in 2006.

[Soldier4Christ]

Minor earthquake shakes Kuril Islands

YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK.  An earthquake measuring 4.4 points on the Richter scale was registered in the area of the Kuril Islands on Friday, Interfax was told at the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk seismological station.

A spokesman for the station said that underground tremors measuring up to two points were felt in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.

The earthquake did not cause any destruction or loss of life. ml

[Soldier4Christ]

Magnitude 4.39 Earthquake Shakes Sonoma County

(AP) SANTA ROSA, Calif. Authorities say there have been no reports of damage or injuries after a series of earthquakes rattled parts of Sonoma County earlier this morning.

The U.S. Geological Survey says a magnitude 4.39 quake hit a little after 3:30 a.m. Friday morning about one mile northwest of The Geysers, or about 42 miles from Santa Rosa.

Several smaller quakes were reported shortly thereafter

[Soldier4Christ]

Mumps cases increase


The health department reported five more Douglas County mumps cases Thursday, bringing the county’s total to 226 confirmed or probable cases this year.

Of those cases, 166 involve Kansas University students, KU spokeswoman Lynn Bretz said.

As of Tuesday, health departments across the state have reported 528 confirmed or probable cases this year with 89 under investigation, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. The KDHE will give an update today about any additional cases in the past few days.

The KDHE on Thursday also announced a confirmed measles case in Johnson County.

Dr. Leon Vinci, director of the Johnson County Health Department, said it appears to be an isolated case because the resident was infected out of the country.

After additional tests, KDHE officials also announced Thursday that they no longer consider four possible cases in Harvey County to be measles.

[Shammu]

Volcano chasers move in as locals flee Indonesia's rumbling Merapi
May 12 12:18 AM US/Eastern
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On the steaming slopes of Indonesia's mount Merapi, villagers fleeing their paddy fields pass tourists on the way up. The volcano attracts or repels, it seems, depending on who you ask.

The 2,914-meter (9,560-foot) volcano has been rumbling for more than three weeks and started oozing lava this month, prompting scientists to warn the pressure cooker could soon start spewing molten rock and clouds of gas and dust.

Kaliurang village, some six kilometres (four miles) from the crater, lies just before the restricted area leading to the summit. Numerous residents, especially the very young and the elderly, have already fled the area.

But others, either keen to remain with their crops and livestock, or to cash in on the area's latest tourist attraction, are staying put.

Christian Awuy, 60, the owner of the Vogels hotel built in 1926 by the former Dutch colonists, is rubbing his hands in glee. Since the volcano started showing renewed signs of life, he has taken reservations from Germany, Britain and the United States.

"When the volcano is active, there are foreign tourists. As for Indonesian tourists, they are afraid," he said as he dealt with four French tourists who came to see the lava trails that flow across the mountain's slopes at night.

Awuy employs two guides and prides himself on knowing the safest routes across the volcano, including the area that local authorities say is too dangerous to visit. But even he has his limits and refuses to go within three kilometres of the dome puffing out clouds of steam.

But for some budding vulcanologists, even that is not close enough.

"There are lava hunters. They have satellite positioning systems, boots with special soles and fireproof clothes," says Awuy.

If it erupts, the strato-volcano is likely to start belching nuees ardentes, a geological term for clouds of volcanic gases, ash, and dust reaching temperatures up to 500 degrees Celsius (930 degrees Fahrenheit).

"There has never been an eruption of Merapi without nuees ardentes," says Ratdomo Purbo from the agency assessing volcanic and geological risks in Indonesia.

The possible collapse of the thick dome of lava, which has grown 75 metres in two weeks, is a major danger.

"From May 4 to 9 there was a rapid growth in the dome, with a daily flux of 150,000 cubic metres (5.3 million cubic feet)" of lava, Purbo says.

The catastrophic tsunami of 2004 showed just how poorly prepared Indonesia's authorities were in dealing with such a disaster. The lesson has yet to be learned in the case of Merapi.

"We need masks, because we only have four, as well as protective eyewear," says Suseno from the crisis prevention coordination cell in Yogyakarta.

Merapi rises from the fertile Kedu plain in the centre of the heavily populated island of Java, around 30 kilometres from the university city of Yogyakarta and last had a major eruption in 1994, killing 66 people.

In that eruption, heat clouds known locally as "shaggy goats" careened down the volcano at more than 100 kilometres per hour. Its most deadly eruption occurred in 1930 when 1,369 people were killed.

If the alert level, which has been at "standby" for more than three weeks, is lifted one notch, authorities will be forced to order the mandatory evacuation of some 22,000 residents.

On Thursday, Vice President Yusuf Kalla ordered that about 17,000 residents begin evacuation despite the alert level remaining stable.

Around 200 vehicles have been made available at 18 different sites to help with an exodus, Suseno says.

In the Pakem district on Merapi's slopes, the local public college has been transformed into an emergency shelter. The desks and chairs have been piled up on one side and the tiled floor has been covered in mats, where women now sleep. Children run around barefoot among the Red Cross emergency health kits.

Temtrem shares a classroom with her seven children and 18 others. She left her husband at their home near Kaliurang to take his chances.

"Those who have cattle or grow avocados and bananas have to stay," she said.

Others are tired of waiting for Merapi to return to normal.

Agustinus Suratijo and his wife refuse to abandon their stall in Kaliurang, where they sell rabbit satay.

"Yesterday the local officials told us to go down to the camp and said they would help us. We went down but we came back up last night," he says.

"I'm happier here."

[Shammu]

Number of Fungal Eye Infection Cases Rises

By BEN DOBBIN, AP Business Writer 1 hour, 56 minutes ago

ROCHESTER, N.Y. - The number of confirmed cases of a rare fungal eye infection that can cause blindness has climbed to 122, most of them contact-lens wearers who reported using Bausch & Lomb Inc.'s newest lens cleaner, federal authorities said Friday.

The eye-care company halted U.S. sales of its ReNu with MoistureLoc MultiPurpose Solution a month ago after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it was investigating an unusual spike in Fusarium keratitis infections in Americans using the product.

While the CDC reiterated in an update that the origin remains a mystery, some eye specialists theorized that MoistureLoc's unique disinfecting and moisturizing agents could have played a role in the outbreak, which first surfaced in the Far East.

"The general thinking now is we're seeing a loss of disinfecting capability as this solution absorbs into the lens," said Dr. Arthur Epstein, chairman of the American Optometric Association's contact lens and cornea section. "Somehow the disinfectant in the real world isn't doing what it's supposed to do."

The fungus is commonly found in plant material and soil in tropical and subtropical areas. Without eye-drop treatment, the infection can scar the cornea and blind its victims. At least eight U.S. patients have required cornea transplants.

On Tuesday, when it confirmed 106 infections, the CDC said 59 patients — or nearly two-thirds of the 93 fully analyzed cases involving contact lens users — reported using MoistureLoc. Another 19 patients said they used an older, more popular Bausch & Lomb solution called ReNu MultiPlus, it said.

The Atlanta-based agency said Friday that a breakdown of the 16 newly confirmed cases won't likely be revealed until next week.

In addition, the CDC said it has received 75 other reports of eye infections caused by Fusarium keratitis — of which 15 were "possible cases" and 60 were still under investigation.

Extensive federal inspections of the factory in Greenville, S.C., where MoistureLoc was made for U.S. and several Asian markets before sales were halted April 13, have not turned up evidence of contamination.

While microbiologic tests could take another week or two to analyze, "one thing we are very close to deleting as a possibility is a widespread contamination in our plant," Bausch & Lomb's chief scientific officer, Praveen Tyle, said in an interview.

No infections have been reported in Japan or Canada, where MoistureLoc has never been sold, and infections dwindled in Singapore after MoistureLoc was pulled off shelves there in February, Tyle noted.

"We are looking more and more closely to patient habits and whether, when they're using MoistureLoc, they're more likely to get an infection compared with other products," Tyle said.

If MoistureLoc is implicated, he added, "the decision we really have to make is, `Can we bring this product back in its current forms in these markets, or do we have to tweak something ... in the formula and then bring back the tweaked formula?'"

Of the more than 30 million Americans who wear contact lenses, nearly 11 million use MultiPlus, which was launched a decade ago. Another 2.3 million people use MoistureLoc, which was introduced in late 2004 and accounted for $45 million in U.S. sales last year. Bausch & Lomb also makes contact lenses, ophthalmic drugs and vision-correction surgical instruments and generates more than $2 billion in annual revenues.

Number of Fungal Eye Infection Cases Rises

[Soldier4Christ]

Mystery disease hits South Texas
Bizarre symptoms: Black, tarry beads of sweat, lesions, fibers popping out of skin


To the concern of medical professionals already preparing for a potential bird flu pandemic, a mysterious disease first documented 300 years ago is spreading throughout South Texas.

Morgellons disease has not been known to kill and it doesn't appear to be contagious – it's the disease's horrible symptoms that worry doctors.

"These people will have like beads of sweat but it's black, black and tarry," Ginger Savely, a nurse practioner in Austin who has treated a majority of Morgellons patients, told the San Antonio Express-News.

Patients infected with the disease get lesions that never heal.

"Sometimes little black specks come out of the lesions and sometimes little fibers," said Stephanie Bailey, a Morgellons patient.

It's those different-colored fibers that pop out of the skin that may be the most bizarre symptom of the disease.

Travis Wilson, a Morgellons sufferer for over a year, once called his mother in to see a fiber coming out of a lesion in his chest.

"It looked like a piece of spaghetti was sticking out about a quarter to an eighth of an inch long and it was sticking out of his chest," Lisa Wilson said. "I tried to pull it as hard as I could out and I could not pull it out.

"He'd have attacks and fibers would come out of his hands and fingers, white, black and sometimes red. Very, very painful," said Wilson.

More than 100 cases of the disease have been reported in South Texas.

"It really has the makings of a horror movie in every way," Savely said.

To make matters worse for sufferers, some doctors dismiss the disease as a delusion because the symptoms patients experience are so bizarre.

"Believe me," said Savely, "if I just randomly saw one of these patients in my office, I would think they were crazy too. But after you've heard the story of over 100 (patients) and they're all — down to the most minute detail — saying the exact same thing, that becomes quite impressive."

The outbreak's proximity to the Texas-Mexico border comes at a time when the issues of illegal immigration, border security and possible amnesty for over 12 million illegal aliens are being debated in the U.S.

The Wilson's spent $14,000 last year after insurance coverage on medical treatment for the disease, primarily on antibiotics.

"He was on Tamadone for pain. Viltricide, this was an anti-parasitic. This was to try and protect his skin because of all the lesions and stuff," said Wilson.

Travis, 23, complained of feeling like bugs were crawling all over him. "You can't sleep. It's freaky. So he'd go days without sleep," she said.

Austin resident Stephanie Bailey, who developed the lesions over four years ago, said she felt the same crawling sensation that Travis Wilson had felt. "The lesions come up, and then these fuzzy things like spores come out," she said. "You just want to get it out of you."

She, to this day, has no idea what could have caused her disease, and nothing has worked to rid her of it.

"They (doctors) told me I was just doing this to myself, that I was nuts. So basically I stopped going to doctors because I was afraid they were going to lock me up," Bailey said.

Pathologists have not been able to find any infection in the fibers pulled from lesions.

"Clearly something is physically happening here," said Dr. Randy Wymore, a researcher at the Morgellons Research Foundation at Oklahoma State University's Center for Health Sciences. "These fibers don't look like common environmental fibers."

Currently the only treatment that has shown success is an antibiotic. More than half of Morgellons patients have also been diagnosed with Lymes disease, but no other connections have been found.

"It sounds a little like a parasite, like a fungal infection, like a bacterial infection, but it never quite fits all the criteria of any known pathogen," said Savely, who continues to treat the disease others say isn't real.

Wilson says her son suffered to such a point she was sure he was suicidal.

"I knew he was going to kill himself, and there was nothing I could do to stop him," she said.

Travis Wilson committed suicide two weeks ago.