Word: bacteria
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...based diagnostic tests are also under development for Lyme disease, tuberculosis and viral meningitis. Present tests for tuberculosis, which involve culturing and growing the bacteria, take up to a month to confirm a diagnosis. PCR can do the job in a few hours. Current tests are unable to distinguish viral meningitis quickly from the far more dangerous bacterial form of the disease, which is most common in infancy. As a result, all babies found to have meningitis are treated as if they had the more lethal form. With a PCR diagnosis, those with viral meningitis could be spared unnecessary hospitalization...
...guiding principle of standard infection control is to act as if everyone and everything is infected with something -- whether it be Staphylococcus bacteria, tetanus toxins or the AIDS virus. That is why instruments should be sterilized in an autoclave, physicians should change gloves or wash hands between patients, and disposable swabs, syringes and other items should not be reused. Although the CDC's disease detectives are still not sure what went wrong in Acer's office, they are zeroing in on just such a breach in infection control...
...should be destroyed? On the one hand, doctors try to disable the body's defenses just enough so that they will not reject the transplant. Here the trick is not to go overboard and completely cripple the immune system, leaving the body open to attack by deadly viruses and bacteria. On the other hand, they try to cajole the body's defenders into accepting the graft...
...expect the uncertainties to persist much longer. "We're at a point where we know when a child would be at a 50 to 100 times greater risk of getting a long list of autoimmune diseases," says Stanford neurologist Lawrence Steinman. "For several diseases we know the bacteria or viruses that can trigger the illness in people with an underlying genetic susceptibility." Improved treatments, reflecting this new knowledge, are beginning to emerge from...
...BACTERIA PANIC. The medical version of Old Maid deals out "sickness cards" illustrated with grisly images of ringworm, gonorrhea and -- for the big loser -- AIDS. But widespread outrage is forcing the Japanese manufacturer to pull the game off the shelves...