Public comment to CDC HICPAC committee November 2024
Infection control in healthcare.
My public comment to the CDC HICPAC Committee.
Direct link to my comment in the stream. (9:11:30)
Direct link to the start of the whole comment period.
Day 2 of the meeting link, with another session of public comments then the vote.
I’m Chloe Humbert.
Semmelweis is known for his campaign for hand washing standards. He was attacked by contrarians until his death. Today he is vindicated yet respiratory hygiene is the science denier flavour of the day.
It’s not okay that doctors and nurses are maskless and breathing directly on patients who then get infected. Now is the chance for those in positions to do so to set a precedent for deserved protection of worker and patient safety. To be on record giving evidence based practitioners something to hang onto.
We are going back.
The only question is how far back people in medical leadership are willing to sign onto. The announced incoming department of defense secretary is someone who said on national tv that he doesn’t wash his hands. We know what can happen because of what has happened before.
In the 1850s Florence Nightingale went to the Crimean War - a hospital in Constantinople. That's Istanbul now, and that situation was no Turkish delight on a moonlit night. She arrived at a British military base ATOP a cesspool where patients lay in their own feces among rodents and more soldiers died from infectious diseases than injuries in battle. Under Nightingale the place was scrubbed and she reduced the facility’s death rate by two thirds.
We might go back further.
The Dark Ages was called that because society moved backwards from the technological advances that had come before. The fall of the Roman Eempire was marked by elites who only cared about the status quo; they could’ve developed a steam engine as far back as Heron in 15 BC but didn’t bother.
Going forward is a choice.
In an article in the Journal of Infectious Diseases & Preventive Medicine there’s a description of what happened back then. “In medieval times, hospitals were hazardous places, Epidemic infections killed large numbers of hospital patients during this period. Hospital infection and death rates were high. When a sick person entered a hospital, his or her property was disposed of, and in some regions, a requiem mass was held, as if he or she had already died.”
Going backward is a choice.
We know better now. We use surgical gloves, autoclaves, disinfectants, checklists and yes, respirator masks exist. But big healthcare corporations don't wanna pay for that, they lock up PPE, force nurses to work without sick leave at hospitals, and make patients beg for reasonable accommodation.
Going forward is a choice.
Let this not be a case of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. But a time when serious healthcare professional leadership takes a stand for sanitary conditions in healthcare, and makes respirator masks and the precautionary principle the standard of care instead doing with masks what would be like calculating whether you should wash your hands after the toilet based on age or health status.
References:
https://www.longdom.org/open-access/infection-prevention-and-control-65496.html
https://www.history.com/topics/womens-history/florence-nightingale-1
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a34554479/heron-aeolipile/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47201923