MRSA Officially A Big Deal, At Last

We first became aware of MRSA during our stint in massage school, a high-touch community at risk for fast spread of staph and other infections. It was almost inevitable in our community that someone would come down with it; that's how widespread these strains are. Three or four of our classmates contracted it over the course of the program, and each time we went into full staph protocol: gloves, bleach dip, infected person not allowed to give or receive massage. Because we were well-educated about the problem and knew the causes, symptoms, and how to avoid spreading the infection, we didn't panic--but we also knew exactly how serious MRSA could be, and treated incidences accordingly.

It's astounding for us to learn that hospitals haven't been reporting MRSA incidences. We're grateful to the Times for persistently documenting exactly how local hospitals treat the infection, and we're taking it as a reminder to take responsibility for our own health as much as we possibly can. Don't take antibiotics unless you honest-to-God NEED them, know what a staph infection looks like, and if you see it on yourself or on someone you know, go get an official diagnosis and get that sucker treated.

Here's the link to the Times' investigative series, here's the Mayo Clinic's beautifully clear and informative page on MRSA, here's what MRSA can look like, and here's a list of punny MRSA jokes from McSweeney's.