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Hospital thought chicken pox was staph

6K views 20 replies 15 participants last post by  .21646 
#1 ·
This is a true story based on actual events.

Keep in mind that small pox and chicken pox look a lot alike. The difference is, small pox can have a 90% fatality rate.

This man starts breaking out in a rash, then the rash turns into these raised bumps and he starts running a fever. So he decides to go to the local emergency room.

This is where things get strange - the doctor thought the man had a staph infection, gave him some antibiotics and sent him home.

Your probably saying, "ok, so what?"

Small Pox looks a lot like chicken pox. If this would have been a case of small pox, the man would have continued to infect other people in the community. In some cases, small pox can have a 90% - 95% fatality rate. During the 1700s and 1800s, small pox killed off an untold number of North American Indians.

One of the fears of the US Government is that someone will release a biological weapon inside the USA.

The person in question went to a local doctor who took a sample of one of the pox and sent it off for testing. While the testing was being done, the man was sent home.

The itching and bumps got so bad that the man reported to a local emergency room. the doctor there diagnosed the rash as chicken pox and the man was admitted.

The patient has since recovered and is back at home.

-----------------

My thoughts on the issue - we are "supposed" to be in a state of war. The first doctor missed something that looks a lot like small pox.

I wonder - if a biological weapon is ever released, will it be caught in time? Will the attending doctor recognize what it is and take action? Or will the doctor do like in the this case, and send the person back into the community?

Worse case situation - someone shows up at an emergency room with a rash. The doctor thinks its a staph infection (just like in this case), the person is given some antibiotics (which are useless against a virus) and sent back into the community. Where the infected person continues to spread the infection to people that he/she comes into contact with. By the time the local health authorities realize what it is, containment is impossible.
 
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#5 ·
I know your story was just an example and some governments almost certainly have samples still, but I will point out that Smallpox was eradicated by...

<drum roll>

...vaccines.


/this post has been brought to you by the Center For Not All Science Is A Government Plot To Kill You
 
#6 ·
but I will point out that Smallpox was eradicated by...

<drum roll>

...vaccines.
In "the wild" small pox was eradicated, but samples still exist in some research facilities, universities and military stockpiles.

For the sake of discussion - just replace the words "small pox" with any other biological warfare disease.
 
#10 ·
For the sake of arguement I will comment that there simply isn't enough room in hospitals to harbor all fo the ill that could be considered potential threats. Add to that, a mass forced hospitalization of those who are "suspect" of having possible terrorist bio attack infections would pose a real threat to the rights of the average person.

Where do we draw the line? Do we hospitalize all "potentials" until proven otherwise or not?
 
#12 ·
For the sake of arguement I will comment that there simply isn't enough room in hospitals
I dont know about where you live, but the hospital here runs at around 75% - 90% capacity during normal business.

The town I live in has one hospital. If you go to the emergency room, expect to wait at least 2, 3, 4 or even 6 hours. Just about all of the serious patients are shipped off to the next largest town - Beaumont, Texas - which is about an hours drive from here.
 
#15 ·
Wow, yeah I've seen that as well. Had a neighbor that went to specialist after specialist for problems with his skin over the course of years. They were convinced it was allergies and put him on all kinds of creams, lotions, steroids, antihistamines, just about anything you can think of. Finally went to a new one, they ran maybe two tests and determined he had skin cancer and did that in a month or so.

We also have to remember that Doctors diagnose based on experience as well as symptoms. If they've seen a couple cases where staph looked like this rash, then they're going to jump on that first. Also, that's part of why they ask you about your occupation, and small talk about hobbies, activities, what you did on the weekend, etc. if you come in with a rash, and in small talk tell them you were out clearing a shooting lane for your tree stand over the weekend, then they're going to look at it from a perspective of poison ivy/oak/sumac, and could very well make the symptoms fit the illness, at least in their mind. And it very well could be that this particular case didn't manifest itself as clearly or similarly as most cases do.

There's a myriad of possibilities, and none of them are right or wrong. What I say is that we need to give doctors an opportunity to spend more time with a patient to better diagnose, rather than rushing them through each appt.
 
#14 ·
I wouldnt be surprised if a young Dr doesnt know what Chicken pox looks like, for get small pox.

Now that they have the vaccines, noone gets it anymore. My older kids had it and since they came out with the shot, its very rare to hear about. Infact I have not heard of a case at my kids school in over 10 years.
 
#16 ·
I'm wondering why the patient wouldn't have been hospitalized
and isolated for having staph? I seem to recall my mother had
a staph infection and was hospitalized and isolated (back in the
80's). Are things different now?

Also, is staph the same or similar to MRSA? A friend's mother
was hospitalized/isolated last Fall with MRSA. Just curious. as
at the time, someone said staph and MRSA were the same.
Thanks!
 
#17 ·
Staph and MRSA are like an Accord and a Humvee. Staph is bad, MRSA is super bad, i's a staph infection only the antibiotics can't kill it. And if it gets in your system its lethal. A lot of people carry MRSA on there skin, while we carry staph on our skin, but washing our hands prevents spreading it to sores or others.

As for hospitalizing all potential contagious patients. Its just not possible. With the H1N1 thing my local hospital had so many 'potentials' in isolation that we were hard pressed for private rooms required for them. Some states also require the isolation of all at risk patients who live in group housing which increases this demand. Group housing can include nursing home residents, prison inmates and such.
 
#18 ·
i'll never trust the medical industry. industry because thats all it is, a business for making money at treating symptoms, not curing or fixing nearly anything.
 
#20 ·
Part of the problem is that the public has these "Star Trek" expectations that you can quickly & positively identify medical maladies. And that is so wrong.

The flip side of the coin is that there are a lot of serious, communicable, infectious diseases out there that look a lot like other less serious ones. A good example would be H1N1 in China. Most people are dismissive of H1N1 (perhaps rightly so). However, in rural China, they occasionally have incidences of pneumonic plague. Very communicable. Very deadly if not treated in 24hrs. But it's very treatable with antibiotics. However, I could easily see it getting out of hand in the public due to a misdiagnosis of flu.
 
#21 ·
This is one of several reasons why I avoid hospitals, doctors and the whole industry in general. We are in no way equipped to deal with a biological attack. While your normal breed of smallpox is a bad bug, a genetically engineered super smallpox is much worse. I did read somewhere, once, that the Russians were rumored to be working on that, to see how far one could take it.

I think the US government regularly does that as well, to test the capabilities of things like that. All the tests in the world, though, don't fix our inability to contain, treat and neutralize a biological attack. Ideally, our hospitals should be running at 25% capacity, leaving 75% for a massive rush of patients. Unfortunately nobody thinks defensively, as that costs a LOT of money.
 
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