On MRSA

from yahoo sports on an article discussing J.T. Snow, Jack Snow, and Kellen Winslow:

This was a lesson the Rams learned the hard way: In the fall of 2003, five St. Louis players came down with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), an increasingly common strain of staph which does not respond to the methicillin, thus requiring stronger antibiotics. Though the team did not go public with the outbreak, it did call the Center For Disease Control for help, and subsequent research concluded that turf burns, shared towels and unsanitary communal whirlpools and weights were likely causes.

See also:

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2005/08/jjethicon-gets-patent-on-predicting.html

**UPDATE, from the LA Times-->

Acinetobacter doesn't garner as many headlines as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, the dangerous superbug better known as MRSA. But a January report by the Infectious Diseases Society of America warned that drug-resistant strains of Acinetobacter baumannii and two other microbes -- Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella pneumoniae -- could soon produce a toll to rival MRSA's.

The three bugs belong to a large category of bacteria called "gram-negative" that are especially hard to fight because they are wrapped in a double membrane and harbor enzymes that chew up many antibiotics. As dangerous as MRSA is, some antibiotics can still treat it, and more are in development, experts say.