Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS -- (Senate - October 31, 2007)

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, we have seen an increasing amount of attention on the growing problem of community and hospital-associated methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, infections. The CDC estimates that in 2005 in the U.S., 94,000 people developed an invasive drug-resistant staph infection. Out of 94,000 infections, researchers found that more than half were acquired in the health care system--people who had recently had surgery or were on kidney dialysis, for example. Nearly 19,000 Americans die, often needlessly, from these infections every year. This is more than the number of people who died from HIV/AIDS, homicide, emphysema, or Parkinson's.

The infections impact not only our civilian families but also our military families. CDC worked with the Army in 2003 to look at an outbreak of serious infections among soldiers. Between March and October 2003, they discovered that 145 American soldiers had been infected with another drug-resistant bacteria, Acinetobacter baumannii-calcoaceticus complex, or ABC. This outbreak of drug-resistant wound infections among soldiers in Iraq appears to have come from the U.S. military hospitals where they were treated, not the battlefield.

Hospitals are taking active steps to identify and control infections, but keep in mind that about half of the infections that end up being treated in a hospital were actually picked up in the community. Schools in Connecticut, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and Kentucky have had to close to help contain the spread of an infection. School officials in Mississippi, New Hampshire, and Virginia reported student deaths within the past month from bacteria, while officials in at least four other States reported cases of students being infected. Most recently, a 12-year-old in Brooklyn died from a community-acquired staph infection.

In the State of Illinois, cases of the drug-resistant staph infection closed schools in Aurora and Joliet. Other cases were confirmed in the Indian Prairie School District in the Aurora Naperville area. Two suburban Catholic elementary schools outside of Chicago were closed for heavy-duty cleaning after school leaders discovered each of the student bodies had a case of a drug-resistant staph infection.

States are taking important steps to control staph infection. The State of Illinois has taken aggressive steps to identify the infection before it grows out of control. Illinois is the first State to require testing of all high-risk hospital patients and isolation of those who carry the bacteria called MRSA. Twenty-two States have passed laws that will give their residents important information about hospital infections. Nineteen States have laws that require public reporting of infection rates.

States are actively pursuing the options that the CDC recommends for communities and hospitals to help fight the spread of drug-resistant bugs. It is time for the Federal Government to follow suit.

Today, I introduce the Community and Healthcare Associated Infections Reduction Act of 2007. This legislation builds on what hospitals are already doing and what infectious disease experts and Government agencies agree is critical to reducing the emergence of these infections.

My colleagues, Senator Obama and Senator Schumer, and I introduced this bill because we believe we have a national responsibility to improve the prevention, detection, and treatment of community and health care-associated infections. To do so, we need to tackle the problem from all sides.

We need better data to understand the problem at hand. The bill requires hospitals to report infection rates to the Federal Government, which we will then use to target high risk areas, identify hospitals that are doing a good job of controlling infections, and do a better job of communicating what we know to hospitals and health departments around the country. With better data, researchers will learn more about how to treat and, ideally, how to prevent these dangerous infections.

But, reporting is not enough. We need comprehensive infection control programs. The bill commissions an updated, comprehensive look at best practices for hospitals on infection control to provide hospitals the tools they need to best address these infections.

The bill also requires the Secretary to conduct a feasibility study on the creation of a Federal payment system to acknowledge and reward hospitals that are preventing these infections. Would this system work and is it what hospitals need? Hospital workers, doctors, and nurses do their very best to protect patients from infection. What more can be done to reward hospitals that are keeping infection rates low?

In addition, the bill addresses the growing impact of these infections--inside and outside the hospital. A new public health campaign will increase awareness in the public and educate people about reducing and preventing infections, especially in schools, locker rooms, playgrounds--the areas where we know bacteria can thrive. Finally, the bill calls for greater coordination of and greater emphasis on research at the Federal level. There are promising approaches to the control of infectious disease--for example, some investigators are looking at the use of bacteria-resistant surfaces in hospitals and other settings.

In a Nation as rich as ours, with the best health care professionals in the world, we don't expect people to come into a health care setting with a broken bone and then go home with a dangerous infection. Our health care system is safe and high quality, and I think we can only improve on that with a stronger emphasis on prevention, reporting and research. Our patients need it, our families deserve it, and everyone of us wants it.

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