‘Superbug’ scourge spreads as U.S. fails to track rising human toll
Hello.  I work for public health.  My job is to support the computer systems that allow epidemiologists to track 'superbugs' (and regular ones).<p>Deathcerts is an interesting dataset.  It's not the only one.<p>Even if death-by-MSRA isn't tracked, I assure you that MSRA itself is tracked.<p>There's a specific class of lab test called "antibiotic susceptibilities".  The results report includes a bunch of numbers that represent just HOW resistant a particular bug is to a standard battery of antibiotics, broken down per antibiotic.<p>That data is transmitted from the labs that performed the test to the state health department where it is analyzed.<p>Fascinating article, but there's NO WAY that Reuters had that much contact with state public health folks without being aware that they track lab results.  Misleading!<p>Edit: elaborated about the susceptibilities results.