We d like to applaud former ACSH trustee Dr. Betsy McCaughey, whose recent op-ed in the Daily News discusses the current state of hospital hygiene or lack thereof.
In her piece, Dr. McCaughey reveals that deadly infections, which increase the risk of mortality by 12 to 25 percent, are as prevalent in hospitals in wealthy towns as they are in their low-income counterparts. The data are based on hospitals reports of infections to state health departments.
ACSH s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan has high praise for McCaughey s op-ed: She draws attention to the severity of this issue with great clarity. Such writing is becoming increasingly rare in today s news.
ACSH s Dr. Josh Bloom points out that the message of Dr. McCaughey s op-ed is doubly important. It s always nice to see that a simple, common-sense solution can make such a big difference, he says. But this is especially important now, since new antibiotic research is practically non-existent, so we will not be able to count on new drugs to bail us out of this mess. And even if there were a healthy pipeline of new antibiotics, it s always better to prevent an infection that to treat one.