Normally I’m allergic to health scaremongering of any sort, especially if it uses government-funded studies to bolster its dire predictions. But here in America the subject of superbugs – microbes that have developed resistance to the drugs once effective in killing them – has resurfaced with a disturbing and ironic twist. Superbugs already kill 700,000 people a year around the world. Now they are apparently being spread by a surgical camera used to help treat cancer.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on March 12 that it will convene a panel on the spread of superbugs. The panel is to meet in mid-May. This announcement follows deaths in Los Angeles and North Carolina from carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae, or CRE, which many patients (we can’t be sure how many) contracted following gastroenterological procedures using a device called a duodenoscope.
The duodenoscope is a sophisticated device, a triumph of medical technology – or so it seemed.
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