Lancastria.net Yea Blackburn!

A flesh-eating form of pneumonia that is easily passed between healthy people on public transport is spreading across the UK, experts have warned.

The deadly strain of MRSA called USA300 passes easily through skin-to-skin contact. It can also survive on surfaces and so has the potential to be picked up on crowded buses and tubes.

It was first seen in the U.S but cases are now being reported in the community and not just hospitals in Britain.

Dr Ruth Massey, from the Department of Biology and Biochemistry at the University of Bath, said extra vigilance was required around this and similar MRSA bugs known as PVL-positive community acquired strains.

USA300 is resistant to treatment by several front-line antibiotics and can cause large boils on the skin. In severe cases, USA300 can lead to fatal blood poisoning or a form of pneumonia that can eat away at lung tissue.

Dr Massey said there were 1,000 cases of PVL-positive community acquired MRSA in England in the last year, of which 200 were USA300 strains.

‘These community-acquired strains seem to be good at affecting healthy people – they seem to be much better than the hospital ones at causing disease.

‘They don’t rely on healthcare workers moving them around, which the hospital ones seem to.’

Dr Massey said USA300 is ‘a really big issue in the U.S. and it’s starting to emerge here.

‘But hopefully because we are aware of it and are working to understand it, it won’t become as big of a problem (in the UK).’

In a new research paper published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, Dr Massey and colleagues analyse the way community-acquired MRSAs are able to adapt and fine tune themselves to spread outside of hospitals.

MRSA bacteria in hospitals has not been able to migrate into the community in the same way.

Dr Massey said: ‘Our research found that the composition of the cell wall of the bacteria is critical to the community-acquired bacteria being more toxic.

‘The ability of the MRSA bacteria to secrete toxins is one of the main ways it causes disease.

‘Using a sensing system, it carefully controls when it switches on its ability to do this, so as not to cause disease until it is firmly established within the human.

MRSA

‘Many antibiotics target the cell walls of harmful bacteria, and to resist this, the bacteria have to make changes to their cell wall.’

Community-acquired MRSA strains have cell walls that are different to those seen in hospitals, allowing them to sense their environment and switch toxin expression on at the right time.

Justine Rudkin, a PhD student working on the project, said: ‘The community-acquired bacteria has evolved further, and is able to maintain a higher level of toxicity while also resisting treatment from antibiotics, making it a much larger problem.’

She added: ‘While we are constantly learning more about MRSA, there is a serious threat posed by this newer strain of bacteria capable of causing disease and even death in perfectly healthy people.

‘We need to respond seriously to this threat as it reaches Britain from the United States.’

Chris Thomas, professor of molecular genetics at the University of Birmingham, said: ‘The key message is that strains of MRSA that are spreading in the community are better able to infect the young and healthy, precisely because they are not actually trying so hard to be resistant as the bugs that have been encountered in hospitals for many years.’

He said there was now a ‘need to worry about community super bugs that are fine tuned to spreading outside of hospitals and we all need to be extra vigilant about hygiene and unnecessary use of antibiotics.’

A spokeswoman for the Health Protection Agency (HPA) said: ‘The paper highlights some important observations which helps us understand at the molecular level why hospital strains of MRSA are less virulent than the so-called community MRSA strains.

‘We have known about community MRSA for over a decade and, whilst they are responsible for a high burden of disease in North America, this is not the case in the rest of the world.

‘In England we have seen sporadic cases of this type of MRSA most often causing boils and abscesses, but it has not emerged as a major public health issue in this country.

‘The HPA are carrying out active surveillance of this type of bacteria and advise healthcare professionals on correct infection control procedures to reduce the likelihood of spread.’

Niagara marks a departure from the usual Marilyn Monroe fare – here she plays a conniving and deceitful wife plotting to have her husband (played by Joseph Cotten) murdered. Directed by Henry Hathaway and running a taut eighty-eight minutes there really isn’t time for much. If you go into this with such expectations you’ll find a fairly entertaining movie. For the Hitchcock fans out there the film does have a few similarities with those of the master himself. Let’s not go overboard here though.

Ulitimately the plot is a non-issue as the resolution is completely unsatisfactory and the steps to get there are nothing truly unique. Monroe and Cotten are vacationing at Niagara Falls, but unbeknownst to Cotten, Marilyn’s lover is on site too: Marilyn and company have concocted a plan to murder Cotten, thus freeing up Marilyn for remarriage presumably. However, crazy Joe turns the tables and murders his would be murderer- originally at least, without the knowledge of Monroe.

After some routine twists and turns Marilyn discovers that her lover in fact has been murdered. A few more twists and her angered husband kills her – roughly two-thirds through the film’s run time. During his escape he steals a boat and………that’s right, he goes over the falls to his untimely death.

Nothing about this film is truly striking but yet nothing is truly appalling either – but the fact that the true star of the picture is missing from the last third definitely hurts the finale. What excitement there is fades during this last third and the ultimate conclusion- Joe going over the falls- but not after first saving a fairly irrelevant fellow tourist- lacks any punch or sense of closure. The viewer is left thinking, “Wow, that’s nice, but so what?”

Marilyn Monroe niagara the movie 1953

There is a very poignant symbolism however, as Marilyn is murdered. Throughout the early portions of the picture, the song she and her lover share plays often – and always elicits a very emotional response from her. It is almost as if this song is the only thing giving Marilyn’s character life.
During the murder (which is offscreen) Hathaway instead shows the bells of the belltower (where the murder occurs) from several different angles. The bells (which play a role earlier on) are dead silent – for all we know these could be stills as there is no movement whatsoever. Hathaway makes the point well.

If there is anything truly spectacular here, it is the work of the two lead actresses – Marilyn Monroe and Jean Peters. Peters plays a honeymooning wife also visiting the Falls and has perhaps the largest part. However, outside of providing a contrast to Monroe’s character she seems to have little to do except robotically move the plot along.

By all means do not look to the male leads to put a twinkle in your eye. Cotten gives it a college try but his relationship with Monroe never holds water. For the second half of the picture he is a tree, just waving whichever way the wind blows, whining and moping around the great scenery. And Max Showalter (playing the honeymooning husband) is, to be blunt, consistently nerdy, goofy, and annoying.

As her last picture before “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” this is the final picture before those pictures with which Marilyn is usually first associated with. In fact it is her first starring role. In any case there is nothing here to truly offend or overly please. At least there is a lot a great cinematography involved for the tourist in all of us.