Constant readers, the website The Science of Health has named SUPERBUG one of its Top 50 public health blogs. I’m flattered to say we’re in excellent company — the other blogs listed there are very good. Please go take a look.
SUPERBUG listed among “50 Excellent Public Health Blogs”
Constant readers, I’m thrilled to let you know that SUPERBUG has been chosen one of “50 Excellent Public Health Blogs” by the nursing website RNCentral.com.
We are in extremely flattering company. Also among their choices are:
- Effect Measure, the premier public-health blog, now the go-to place for analyses of public responses to pandemic flu
- the Pump Handle, on public and occupational health
- the New Health Dialogue, on health-care reform, whose writers include my friend and former Kaiser Foundation co-fellow Joanne Kenen,
- Covering Health, the blog of the Association of Health Care Journalists, where I am a board member
- Schwitzer Health News, the journalism-quality blog of Gary Schwitzer, University of Minnesota professor and founder of Health News Review
- Barf Blog, written by food-safety experts at Kansas State University and North Carolina State University
along with many others that are new to me and that I look forward to checking out. I urge you to do the same.
Appearing today on The Ethicurean
Constant readers, I want to let you know that the terrific food policy blog The Ethicurean (motto: “Chew the right thing“) very kindly had me over to do a Q&A on MRSA in meat. Please take a look and let them have some clicks: They are smart people thoughtfully elucidating a difficult subject, and worth following.
(And I would say that even if they hadn’t called me the “Superbug supersource,” honest.)
GlobalPost launches and SUPERBUG is there
Constant readers, I am thrilled to let you know that SUPERBUG is among a select list of blogs invited to be featured on GlobalPost, a gutsy and innovative new online news site that launches today.
GlobalPost is the creation of Charles M. Sennott, formerly an award-winning foreign correspondent and bureau chief for the Boston Globe, and Philip Balboni, founder and former president of New England Cable News. The service links 65 foreign correspondents living in 46 countries. The founders say in their introductory note that they are:
…acutely aware of the fact that quality journalism in America is threatened more profoundly today than at any time in our history from an unprecedented combination of forces: the transformational power of technology and the internet, the dramatic erosion in the economic underpinnings of the traditional media, and a steady migration of the most devoted consumers of news as well as younger people to new content platforms, most importantly the web.
GlobalPost is a direct response to these forces. Our mission is to provide Americans, and all English-language readers around the world, with a depth, breadth and quality of original international reporting that has been steadily diminished in too many American newspapers and television networks. GlobalPost is at the leading edge of what we hope and believe will become a new flowering of journalism in the digital age, built around new models of financial support.
The site has a number of pages and options, and a notable commitment to transparency in its reporting. Sennott takes new visitors through the details in his editor’s blog. For an outside take on why GlobalPost is worth reading and supporting, read editor and digital consultant Ken Doctor’s thoughtful take.
I know that all of you who gather here regularly already understand the irrelevance of borders to infectious disease control. (For just a few recent examples, see the MRSA outbreak in a Prince Edward Island hospital, the astonishing lack of hand-washing in British health care, and the movement of the pig strain of MRSA from the Dominican Republic to New York City.)
And therefore I know you understand the crucial importance of reliable journalism from abroad. So please welcome this intriguing effort and visit the new site. I’ve placed a GlobalPost button in the right-hand column.
(And just to add, because it’s important to say such things: No money is changing hands here. I don’t get paid for being featured there, and there are no revenues accruing anywhere else. Also, nothing about being featured on GlobalPost changes anything we do or say here: The site remains on Blogger, and your comments stay within this community and continue to be moderated by me.)
In excellent company
Constant readers, I’m pleased to report that SUPERBUG has been listed among 100 Global Health Blogs That Will Open Your Eyes by US PharmD+, an online info source for pharmacy education and the pharmacy profession.
We are in excellent company: Also listed are Effect Measure, Pump Handle, H5N1, Aetiology, Pharmalot and the indefatigable and indispensable crew at ProMED-Mail.
There are a number of intriguing-looking blogs on the list that I did not know about. I urge you to take a look. And much appreciation to Kelly Sonora and USPharmD+ for highlighting these resources and including this blog among them.
New CDC educational campaign on CA-MRSA, aimed at parents
This morning, the CDC is launching a “National MRSA Education Initiative” aimed at raising awareness among parents and average health-care professionals — not academic center researchers so much as front-line nurses, NPs, PAs and others who are likely to be the first set of eyes on a community MRSA infection.
The campaign’s front door is a newly constructed page on the CDC’s website that looks well-stocked with fact sheets for parents and for health-care workers; lots of informative photos, most of them taken by physicians, of what a MRSA skin infection looks like; specific information about MRSA infections in schools and in sports; and a free-of-charge radio PSA.
Especially useful, for those who might need it, is a copy of the CDC’s recommended “treatment algorithm” for suspected MRSA — a flowchart or decision-tree for choosing antibiotics when MRSA is suspected. The algorithm was the result of a number of meetings of experts convened by the CDC and represents the best advice on what to take when. It’s a useful thing to consult if you suspect you may be dealing with MRSA and wonder whether you have been given the appropriate drug. All of these materials are downloadable and printable; open-access/no copyright because they are government-produced.
From the agency’s press release (not posted yetposted here):
The National MRSA Education Initiative is aimed at highlighting specific
actions parents can take to protect themselves and their families. CDC
estimates that Americans visit doctors more than 12 million times per
year for skin infections typical of those caused by staph bacteria. In
some areas of the country, more than half of the skin infections are
MRSA. …
“Well-informed parents are a child’s best defense against MRSA and other
skin infections,” said Dr. Rachel Gorwitz, a pediatrician and medical
epidemiologist with CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion.
“Recognizing the signs and receiving treatment in the early stages of a
skin infection reduces the chances of the infection becoming severe or
spreading.”
