The warning has been made by Birmingham and Warwick university scientists, who say disinfectants and other products washed into sewers and rivers are triggering the growth of drug-resistant microbes. Soil samples from many areas have been found to contain high levels of bacteria with antibiotic-resistant genes, the scientists have discovered – raising fears that these may have already been picked up by humans.

The study suggests that the problem of drug resistance is not merely the result of the over-prescription of antibiotics or poor hygiene standards in hospitals. However, the team stressed the emergence of the most deadly superbugs – such as MRSA that has caused thousands of deaths in hospitals – is not linked to the use of disinfectants.

Drug resistance is not confined to hospitals, but is out in the community. It is spreading and all the time it is eroding our ability to control infections. It is extremely worrying,”

Just as simple as that…

Don’t you know that many straight men and women are having anal intercourse? Not all – not most – but many.

Also, if you’re in sexual contact with them (or wrestling – say on a high school or college team) and in close skin to skin contact with someone – you can get MRSA.

It may be that those who have contracted staph that belong to other demographics are hard to define – (father – who is hispanic, mother – who is white, son from another marriage who is black, daughter from this marriage who goes to preschool and they all get MRSA?) Hard to put those people into one group except that they all live in the same household and use the same toilet, bathtub, sink, dishes, towels, etc…

Focusing on one group (that can be identified) is not the issue when it is so easily transmitted via skin contact and people who get it can get it from VARIOUS places and go by different groups.

(1) MRSA is a BACTERIA and Not a VIRUS (people will associate this to flu virus and will think it will go away and won’t seek help)

(2) You don’t need to have sex to catch MRSA.

(3) Getting massage is a parlor can give you MRSA, especially in places you may be embarrassed to talk about.

(4) Bacteria breath oxygen, eat sugar and protein, multiply like our body cells.

That’s dealing with the problem after the fact but the focus needs to be on PREVENTION. Defensive rationalizations are of no value in battling this disease.

There seems to be a great deal of shadow-boxing in many comments here assuming the study is saying what it is not saying and assuming that those focusing on the problem within homosexual communities are ignoring the problem in other communities.

Anal intercourse is an unhealthy practice, period. Almost all men having sex with men practice it. This unhealthy practice introduces a great many diseases as Dr. Jeffery Satinover noted some time back in his Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth. It appears that the “politics of truth” continues unabated in this discussion. J. Matt Barber makes this observation: http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/mbarber/080124

There’s no mention of sexual orientation in these studies, Timothy, only of certain sexual behaviours prevalent among men who have sex with men. Why would anti-gay people blame gays for the spread if this disease were restricted to gays?

Concerning the article in Chicago Journals,

“Heterosexual transmission of community?associated methicillin?resistant Staphylococcus aureus has not been documented. As part of a survey conducted in northern Manhattan, we encountered 3 households in which heterosexual transmission was responsible for new community?associated methicillin?resistant S. aureus infection.”

This seems to merely point out that heterosexual transmission is possible. Again, it doesn’t compare the two.