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Nutrition is a controversial topic, perhaps because with only minimal effort it is possible to find seemingly credible people advocating for totally opposite messages. In the realm of public media, it is even worse.
Despite public confusion, reviewing the evidence relating nutrition to health and disease yields more clarity than most people realize.
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Trying to rein in the widespread misuse of antibiotics that is driving the rise of pan-resistant infections, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has created an electronic tracking system that will allow hospitals to monitor and benchmark drug use much as they already do for health care associated infections (HAIs).
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As a key complement to its new antibiotic use tracking system, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is partnering with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) in a pilot program to prevent overuse and misuse of antibiotics in hospitals.
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While emerging multidrug resistant gram negative rods are a prime topic of current concern, there is a sobering reminder that longstanding foes have not exactly been vanquished.
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Getting a flu shot doesn't provide as much protection as was previously reported, according to new analysis of more than 5,000 studies. Now it's time to be honest about the limitations of the vaccine to build trust with health care workers, says an international expert in risk communication.
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More health care workers than ever are receiving the influenza vaccine. A national survey shows that by mid-November, about 78% of them had been vaccinated a rate that is almost double the rate of about five years ago.
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Infection preventionists are keeping their heads above water in a brutal economy, though they may be understandably confused about which hat they have on them.
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Influenza remains a major source of morbidity and increased mortality among patients with cancer, and prior studies had indicated impaired response to vaccination. In the current report, lymphoma patients treated with rituximab, either in combination with chemotherapy or as a single agent, were found to have markedly deficient influenza vaccine response, with not 1 of 67 achieving a protective titer, compared with 42 of 51 controls. Thus, rituximab-treated lymphoma patients are particularly susceptible to vaccine failure and influenza infection should be highly considered in symptomatic patients, even in those who had been appropriately vaccinated.
