Infections continue to run rampant

"Unnecessary Deaths" calls for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local public health officials to do more to stop hospital infections. The report, sponsored by the National Center for Policy Analysis and the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, says it is alerting the public to the grave financial and human consequences of poor infection control in American hospitals and maintains that these infections are almost all preventable through improvements in procedures and hygiene.

"One out of every 20 patients gets an infection in the hospital," asserts Betty McCaughey, chairman of RID and former Lt. Gov. of New York. "Infections that have been nearly eradicated in some countries--such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus--are raging through hospitals in the United States."

"Unnecessary Deaths" documents the success of hospitals that have reduced infections by 85% or more in pilot programs. "Betsy McCaughey's research dispels the myth that infection is the inevitable and unavoidable risk of being hospitalized," according to NCPA President John C. Goodman.

Hospital infections add $30,000,000,000 a year to the nation's hospital costs, the report declares. "The CDC has delayed calling on all hospitals to institute the rigorous precautions that are working in other countries and in the few U.S. hospitals that have tried them," states McCaughey. "CDC standard precautions are far less effective in preventing hospital infections. Every year of delay has cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars. The CDC constantly says it is preparing to do more, but fails to act. The [agency] has spent 25 years tracking the rise of deadly drug resistant infections in hospitals but has done too little to stop it."

Inadequate infection control in hospitals is risky to homeland security and poor preparation for an avian flu threat, McCaughey concludes. "Hospitals that lack the discipline and training to stop ordinary bacterial infections from spreading from patient to patient are unprepared for the larger challenge of stopping avian flu or bioterrorism pathogens from sweeping through their institutions."

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