Wired to report US unwittingly evolved superpathogen in Iraqi combat hospitals
John Byrne
Published: Sunday January 21, 2007
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A drug-resistant bacteria that is infecting wounded US soldiers in Iraq -- and has spread to civilian hospitals in parts of Europe -- accidentally evolved in US military hospitals in Iraq, Wired Magazine will report in a massive expose on Monday, RAW STORY has learned.
The several thousand word expose is set to bring uncomfortable new light to the bacteria Acinetobacter baumannii that Pentagon officials previously said was likely a product of Iraqi soil.
"By creating the most heroic and efficient means of saving lives in the history of warfare, the Pentagon had accidentally invented a machine for accelerating bacterial evolution and was airlifting the pathogens halfway around the world," the magazine reveals.
The story will go live online early Monday, newsroom sources say, and appear in February's print edition.
DEVELOPING...
"Coming to a Hospital near you"
The Battle over multiple drug resistant microbes: MRSA, Acinetobacter, C. Difficile, etc. "Irresponsible medicine"
Early this year an outbreak of MDR Acinetobacter Baumannii swept over Arizona, 236 cases in just two months. It was reported by the state disease monitoring systems, but ignored on the national level.
Now dubbed "Supergerms", they spread without warning and seemingly without official notices since they are infections instead of diseases. The government is taking advantage of this technicality.
An ICU nurse at Bethesda Naval in Washington DC leaves work feeling under the weather. Within 24 hours she is in a community hospital, intubated, with Acinetobacter Baumannii. It was determined that the bacteria were acquired from a patient at work. She succumbed to the infection quickly and with no fan fare. The story went silent.
At Brook Army Medical Center in Texas a soldier fights for his life, as his combat wounds are made worse by infections the doctors can't seem to handle. The only reason his story is known is that his civilian girl friend speaks up for him.
This outbreak that is spreading nation wide is largely due to the war in Iraq, and because of a legal technicality in reporting, the military and CDC will not discuss it publicly.
Thanks for passing this story on.
ReplyDeleteThis bug has already been passed to community hospitals all over the country.
If the DOD had put as much effort into containing it as they did into covering it up many lives and limbs could have saved.
They have the clamps on information regarding leishmaniasis also. It is a bloodborne parasitic infection normally aquired from the bite of a sandfly. No cure, lives in stored blood up to 30 days, is passed on sexually, congentially, and by blood transfusion.
It can take up to twenty years to present itself in a healthy person.
It is likely that many people are coming back from Iraq with this and won't know it for years to come.
My husband came back with both.