A rising tide of drug-resistant staph infections Spider bites
and pimples that just won't heal. That's how parents are
describing their children's skin infections that turn out to be
caused by a deadly strain of drug-resistant "staph" bacteria,
says C. Buddy Creech, M.D., M.P.H., assistant professor of
Pediatric Infectious Diseases. Creech has been following the
rising tide of cases of community-associated methicillin-
resistant Staphylococcus aureus, MRSA, and he's concerned. He
describes deaths of children, particularly adolescents, who are
healthy and then develop sudden, devastating disease. "These are
cases where a child has a fever on Saturday night, feels bad on
Sunday, collapses in the pediatrician's office on Monday, and
then dies. It's horrible." Skin abscesses are the most common
presentation, and recent MRSA outbreaks have occurred among
athletes, prisoners and tattoo recipients, with the germ
spreading through skin contact or shared items like towels. Of
the skin abscesses treated in the adult and