“I have written about MRSA in this space a number of times. It is a genuine epidemic that state agencies would rather not discuss; it didn’t come from Asia, after all, and those same agencies are largely responsible for it. Does that mean if grandma gets MRSA she’s history? Maybe so. I have mentioned VRSA a few times. It’s the variety of staph that can emerge after treating MRSA with Vancomycin. As far as I know it’s still confined to hospitals, as is another resistant bacteria called VRE. However, recently I read about another one that got out. It’s an old time bacteria called Clostridum Difficle and there is a deadly mutation running rampant across the country. … But I digress. The ‘flu pandemic’ mentioned above refers to Bird Flu, of course, the favorite political pandemic du jour. In ten years Bird Flu has infected 348 persons and killed 216 in 14 countries. In 2005 MRSA infected 94,000 and killed 18,250 in the US alone. Which one is a problem?” (05/09/08)