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University of Minnesota Twin Cities

The Trump administration has placed a pause on all external health communications from federal health agencies, according to media reports.
The Washington Post reports that the pause covers health advisories, weekly scientific reports, updates to websites, and social media posts.
Of the 139 patients, 12 received active antibiotic treatment for MDRP and 60 received non-active antibiotic treatment.
Still, the rate of antibiotic treatment for CA-ASB remains high.
“We believe the findings will contribute to more informed decision-making by clinicians regarding antibiotic use in patients with MDRP CA-ASB, thereby potentially reducing unnecessary treatments while ensuring timely intervention for high-risk patients.”

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Media outlets have reported that the Trump administration has halted all external health communications from federal health agencies.

According to the Washington Post, the pause includes social media posts, website updates, weekly scientific reports, and health advisories. The pause was announced yesterday to employees of the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), among other departments within the Department of Health and Human Services.

Items covered by the pause include advisories from the Health Alert Network, which is how the CDC notifies local public health officials and clinicians about critical public health events, and the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, which usually includes epidemiologic studies and case reports on infectious disease outbreaks. The CDC views both as essential components of its communications plan.

Although it’s unclear if it will impact more urgent communications, the pause also covers FDA releases on food recalls and drug and medical device approvals, according to the Post.

The scope of the pause is unusual, according to a source who spoke to CNN, even though “it wasn’t unheard of” for a new presidential administration to request a pause to review information before going public. A health official told the Post that the pause might become problematic if it continues for more than a week or two.

According to a study published in the American Journal of Infection Control, antibiotic treatment was a significant risk factor for recurrent infection in hospital patients with catheter-associated asymptomatic bacteriuria (CA-ASB) brought on by multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa (MDRP).

Researchers in South Korea found that out of 139 patients who were admitted to a tertiary hospital in 2018 with MDRP CA-ASB, 37 (26.6 percent) had subsequent MDRP infections. These infections included urinary tract infections (17.3 percent), pneumonia (4.3 percent), soft-tissue infections (3.6 percent), and bone and joint infections (1.4 percent). A total of 139 patients were treated with active antibiotics for MDRP, while 60 patients received non-active antibiotics.

Active antibiotic treatment (HR, 2.34; 95 percent CI, 1.02 to 5.38), recurrent bacteriuria (HR, 3.57; 95 percent CI, 1.73 to 7.38), and underlying urologic disease (hazard ratio (HR), 2.17; 95 percent CI, 1.01 to 4.66) were all identified by multivariate analysis as subsequent symptomatic infections.

Antibiotic treatment is not recommended by guidelines.

Although patients who have catheters are often carriers of ASB, the authors point out that current guidelines do not recommend antibiotics for CA-ASB because antibiotic treatment has not demonstrated any discernible benefits for patients with the condition and can cause side effects and antimicrobial resistance. The prevalence of treating CA-ASB with antibiotics is still high.

“Despite the involvement of multidrug-resistant pathogens like MDRP, our findings strongly support adherence to the current guidelines that recommend against antibiotic therapy for CA-ASB,” they wrote. “We think the results will help clinicians make better decisions about the use of antibiotics in patients with MDRP CA-ASB, which could lead to fewer needless treatments and ensure that high-risk patients receive timely intervention.”. “..”.

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