A SHOW OF HANDS

To set the record straight, I am in full favor of hand washing, at least once before you eat a meal, or once after you pick up road kill.

"The number of bacteria on your body right now is greater than the number of people in the United States", states The University of Georgia, who makes a convincing case for hand washing.

And if you are a person in a hospital or healthcare facility who has a weakened immune system, washing hands may be a matter of life and death.

CBC News reported in 2007, "Every year 250,000 Canadians pick up infections when they are in hospitals being treated for something else. That's a staggering one out of every nine patients who are admitted to the hospital.

"Every year those infections kill more than 8,000 people.

"That's more than will die of breast cancer, AIDS, or car accidents combined. Most of those deaths can be prevented — by simple hand washing.

"In the wake of the SARS outbreak that hit Toronto in March 2003, hand sanitizers have become common in hospitals and other public buildings across the country. Many people use them — others don't.

"A CBC-TV Marketplace investigation found that doctors often walk past the sanitizers even while going from patient to patient. Dr. Michael Gardam — the infection control expert at the University Health Network in Toronto — says doctors are the least likely to wash their hands.

"Many clean their hands only 10-20 per cent of the time", warns the CBC.

It may come as no surprise that we can become more sick or even die in hospitals from infectious disease.

But, what about when you are out of the hospital and on the football field or wherever artificial turf is found?

"Missy Baker recalls the moment when she realized her football-playing son, Boone, didn't just have the flu.

"'He told me he was paralyzed,' Baker said. "'I said, 'What do you mean? I just saw you walk to the bathroom two hours ago.'" And he said, "'Mom, I can't move my arms or legs.'"

"Sixteen-year-old Boone, a wide-receiver for Texas's Austin High School, was suffering from a recurrence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, which his doctors said he got through an abrasion from playing on artificial turf, Baker said."

MRSA, "... is a virulent strain of drug-resistant staph bacteria that plagued hospitals for decades and migrated into the general population in recent years, said Edward Septimus, an infectious disease specialist in Methodist Hospital System in Houston. Without proper treatment, it can spread to internal organs and bones after reaching the bloodstream, causing organ failure," warns Septimus in a Bloomberg news report.

"Football players often become infected at the site of a turf burn are misdiagnosed, said David Smith, co-author of a study showing that MRSA-related hospitalizations in the U.S. more than doubled from 1999 to 2005.

"'These turf burns themselves are just the kind of minor skin injury that MRSA can exploit,' said Elliot Pellman, medical liaison for the National Football League, which also has had infections among its players.

"Football dominates high school sports in Texas, which has more participants than any other state. Seventy-four schools have stadiums seating more than 10,000. The sport provides 22,041 full-time jobs and generates $2.88 billion in annual spending, said Ray Perryman, president of Perryman Group, a Waco economic and financial analysis firm.

"Football also produces more MRSA infections than any other sport, said Marilyn Felkner, the epidemiologist who led the Texas studies. The department wasn't able to obtain enough data to establish a statistical link between artificial turf and MRSA infections, she said.

Although, "MRSA causes more deaths than any of the 51 infectious diseases tracked by the Center for Disease Control, including AIDS, according to CDC data," the Bloomberg report points out that the CDC doesn't require medical professionals to report MRSA cases.

I guess the CDC just wants to be a good sport and wash their hands of any possible link between artificial turf and MRSA.