this post was submitted on 02 May 2024
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[–] huginn@feddit.it -4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (4 children)

Y'all fall for click bait so fucking easily it's embarrassing.

The only reason this is reported on at all is that conspiracy theorists will see connections in anything.

People get sick and die all the time.

MRSA killed 100k people in 2019 alone. It's hard as hell to clean up and people catch it easily.

He had trouble breathing so he went to the hospital (probably COVID) and got intubated. MRSA from an intubation is unfortunately normal. It's a major risk to be intubated.

[–] SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 58 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Hi! I'm a microbiologist and you have some facts either without useful context or that are just incorrect.

MRSA is methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The methicillin resistance is notable as it shows a resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics, which constitutes a large portion of antibiotics in use in medicine.

MRSA is "easy to catch" in that it lives harmlessly on the skin of about 2% of the global population, but MRSA bacteremia, a pathogenic MRSA infection, is actually pretty uncommon, at around 400,000 people a year worldwide, of which around 100k people die. That's nothing. The common cold, the influenza viruses, infect an estimated over 1 billion people annually and kill an estimated 400,000, and they're pretty mild but they're rather infectious.

MRSA is typically easy to treat - that's why about 75% of patients live - with the remainder either having an infection in an unfortunate location, like the blood, immune deficiency, a strain of MRSA that happens to not be susceptible to available antibiotics, or just a lack of prompt treatment.

On the conspiracy bullshit part, I could absolutely give someone MRSA pneumonia, a particularly fatal form of both MRSA infections and pneumonia in general. What could be telling is determining his initial infection. If it was MRSA, sequencing that particular infection (or at least looking for the presence of notable genes using rtPCR) to determine its likely origin could be insightful. Without knowing the identity of his primary infection, though, we're left at guessing.

What IS interesting is that both Boeing whistleblowers have died from relatively uncommon causes, suicide and pneumonia in a healthy individual, in rapid succession. That's one hell of a coincidence.

Fuck Boeing.

[–] LoamImprovement@beehaw.org 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I mean, I'm not trying to play DA for shitty-ass Boeing here, but coincidences do happen. I'm certainly more likely to believe this death was a result of bad luck than the suicide from a guy who told his family, and I quote: "If anything happens, it's not suicide."

[–] SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Oh, totally. It's possible it's a coincidence, it's just also possible that it was Boeing. I'm withholding my final judgment because I can't know either way with any surety, but I'd be incredibly unsurprised if, were we to ever determine a definite cause plus the existence of a perpetrator, that it was Boeing. Either way, fuck Boeing.

If I was one of the remaining five recent whistleblowers, I'd be looking over my shoulder hard right now.

[–] pingveno@lemmy.ml 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

MRSA is typically easy to treat - that’s why about 75% of patients live

So 25% die even when under treatment? That seems high. A similar mortality rate is the untreated form of dengue fever, severe dengue. Am I totally off the mark?

[–] SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

This is a good paper that gives an overview of MRSA related stats: StatPearls - Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

The answer is it depends. It's about 23.5% worldwide if I recall correctly, though I'm having trouble finding the paper I originally pulled that figure from. The paper linked puts it around 30-40%. Keep in mind that MRSA is pretty prevalent, so most people who have it have a commensal "infection" that just hangs out on their skin and, even if it does become pathogenic, it's often subclinical, so many of the less serious cases go unreported. It's only when it's pretty bad or when people are undergoing medical treatment already that it's actually discovered and even then often not in a way that can be reported. On top of this, treatment varies depending on numerous factors, so areas with fewer medical resources will have significantly higher mortality rates.

[–] pingveno@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 months ago

Thanks for the reply.

[–] INHALE_VEGETABLES@aussie.zone 32 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Whistle blowers die even more frequently

[–] FreudianCafe@lemmy.ml 8 points 6 months ago

They die all the time even more!

[–] TronnaRaps@lemmy.ca 18 points 6 months ago

Ok boeing exec

[–] Coreidan@lemmy.world 10 points 6 months ago

lol

Spotted the Boeing shill.