Ricky’s story is unique and interesting for a number of reasons. First, Ricky’s convinced that he was colonized by C. diff while visiting his late grandmother in a nursing home. He notes that, while she had been diagnosed with C. diff, at no point did the nursing home staff warn him or his other family members to take sanitary or hygiene precautions. Second, Ricky’s C. diff infection was set off, not by the oral antibiotics typically associated with CDIs, but by using Cipro eye drops. Third, Ricky’s mother figured out that he was suffering from C. diff by reviewing his grandmother’s medical records and realizing the connection between her mother’s illness and her son’s.
In just 2 years, the Peggy Lillis Memorial Foundation has rallied a national coalition to confront a disease that afflicts people in healthcare settings and claims the lives of more than 25,000 Americans each year. C. diff. has been cutting a steadily widening and lethal swath through the country for the last 40 years. But it doesn’t have to. How do we prevent C. diff.? And how do we identify it quickly in patients so it doesn’t kill? These are the questions the foundation has become a force in answering. Consumers and caregivers are using our materials every day to improve healthcare in the U.S. Our ability to shape health strategies and outcomes derives in large part from the support of people who care. We ask you to join the ranks of our supporters today with a tax-deductible contribution.
On Sunday, August 12th, we joined the resident of Eagle Lake Recreation Community in Gouldsboro, Pennsylvania for one of it’s summer walk-a-thons. Carmela McCann, one of our mother’s colleagues at PS 198 and an Eagle Lake resident, had arranged for the Peggy Lillis Memorial Foundation to be the recipient of …
By Peter Eisler “Yet despite a decade of rising C. diff rates, health care providers and the government agencies that oversee them have been slow to adopt proven strategies to reduce the infections, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths and illnesses that could have been prevented, the investigation shows. …
By Christian John Lillis Disease prevention and the military rank side by side as national priorities, at least on paper. Federal obligations for public health, as part of promoting “the general welfare,” and providing for “the common defense” originate in the same two sentences of the Constitution. But while the military grabs more …