The Most Infectious Place in the World By Jim Lynn What is the single most infectious place in the world? Would you believe the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of hospitals? True! Each year 3% to 5% of U.S. hospital patients are stricken with diseases they didn't have when they were admitted...And more than 10,000 people die of them. Excessive use of antibiotics and extremely ill patients - combined with an abundance of tubes - have made bacteria more resistant in the ICU than anywhere else in the hospital, according to a study by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health. According to Dr. Alexander Tomasz, a drug resistance expert at New York's Rockefeller University, "The intensive care unit is the single most infectious place in the world when it comes to antibiotic-resistant bacteria." The Spread of Infectious Disease But the spread of infectious disease doesn't stop at the door of the ICU. According to the American Society for Microbiology, disease-causing microbes, some of them impervious to antibiotics, are carried from patient to patient throughout the hospital by health care workers who only touched surfaces in the room of an infected person. Unbelievably, "No one knows how to eradicate them," says, Dr. Lennox Archibald, a CDC medical epidemiologist and co-author of the CDC study. Contamination occurs from clothing, blankets, bed rails, walls, electronic thermometers, sinks, showers, tubes which are inserted into the body, gloves worn by health care workers, and improper ventilation systems. This represents a big change of consensus by health officials, who for years did not believe that hospitals could be the cause of such wide-spread disease transmission. What the CDC Study Found... The CDC study, at eight hospitals, compared the strength of common bacteria such as staphylococcus and enterococcus and the antibiotics commonly used to kill them. Here's what the study found: 79.7% of staphylococcus epidermidis bacteria, which causes skin infections, was resistant to the antibiotic methicillin in ICU's. This is double the percentage found in other parts of the hospital. 39.4% of staphylococcus aureus, which causes blood infections and pneumonia, was resistant to methicillin in ICU's. This percentage compared 31.2% elsewhere in the hospital. 7.7% of enterococcus bacteria, one cause of blood infections, was resistant to the antibiotic vancomycin in ICU's, compared with 6.1% elsewhere in the hospital. Bacteria Fight Back ... Antibiotics attack bacteria by destroying part of their protective cell wall. But bacteria fight back by changing the cell wall so the antibiotics can't get in. They also know how to pass on their new defenses to other bacteria, rendering the latest generation of antibiotics useless over time. The answer for this drug failure from the medical community has been simply to rely upon the development of still newer drugs. But hasn't nature taught us a lesson? Isn't it Time to Consider a Different Weapon? Now the question that should be raised (but isn't) is why does the medical community CONTINUE to rely on antibiotics as their main line of defense, when they already know their limitations? Moreover, why does the medical community continue to use antibiotics that frequently cause more harm to the patient, by way of side effects, than to the microbes for which they were prescribed? Isn't it time the medical community looks at something different for cleaning up ICU's and the rest of the hospital system from such deadly pathogens? Many well informed scientists and researchers think it so...and have an answer. Consider Essential Oils... The antiseptic and antibacterial properties of "PURE" Essential Oils are second to none, according to Dr. Jean Valnet, MD, the well known French medical researcher and Essential Oil expert. Dr. Valnet, citing the works of Morel and Rochaix, points out, "...that the vapors of lemon essence alone will neutralize the meningococcus in 15 minutes, the typhus bacillus in less than an hour, pneumococcus in one to three hours, STAPHYLOCOCCUS AUREUS in two hours and hemolytic streptococcus in three to twelve hours." He adds that, "Applied directly, the Essential Oil itself neutralizes the typhus bacillus and staphylococcus in only 5 minutes, and diphtheric bacillus in just 20 minutes." (Staphylococcus aureus is one of the antibiotic-resistant bacteria mentioned in the CDC study.) In a French study, the air of a large hospital was found to contain an average of 10,000 microbes per cubic meter. According to Dr. Valnet, when a doctor subjected some of the microbe laden air from the hospital into a flask containing just a few drops of Essential Oils, 40% of the microbes were destroyed in only 20 minutes, 80% in an hour and 100% in nine hours. Oregano versus Penicillin In a recent U.S. study, the antibacterial properties of the Essential Oil of Cinnamon and Oregano were compared to the antibacterial properties of Penicillin and Ampicillin. In each case, the kill ratio exhibited by the Essential Oils was many times higher than the antibiotics. Moreover, when the amount of antibiotics were increased, their effectiveness did not increase, but remained the same. But when the amount of Oils were increased, their effectiveness (kill ratio) increased all the more... Perhaps best of all of what we know about Essential Oils is that viruses and bacteria are not known to mutate or become resistant to Essential Oils ... unlike man-made antibiotics. This is important if the medical community is ever to make hospitals safe to enter into. Clear and Present Danger Based on the CDC report's findings, current hospital procedures used to guard against the spread of disease represents a clear and present danger to the health and well-being of patients. Shouldn't it be obvious to our medical community, they need to look at Essential Oils for stopping disease transmission? One very simple and inexpensive procedure to implement would be to diffuse molecule size Essential Oils into the atmosphere of every patient room, OR and ICU of every hospital. Unfortunately, while the evidence of their effectiveness is overwhelming, the medical community remains dedicated to pharmaceutical and other patent controlled interests. But then, that's another story. ### Table of Content BACK TO CATALOG