Alarming combo: Bedbugs with 'superbug' germ found (AP)

ATLANTA � Hate insects? Afraid of germs? Researchers are reporting an alarming combination: bedbugs carrying a staph "superbug." Canadian scientists detected drug-resistant staph bacteria in bedbugs from three hospital patients from a downtrodden Vancouver neighborhood.

Bedbugs have not been known to spread disease, and there's no clear evidence that the five bedbugs found on the patients or their belongings had spread the MRSA germ they were carrying or a second less dangerous drug-resistant bacteria.

However, bedbugs can cause itching that can lead to excessive scratching. That can cause breaks in the skin that make people more susceptible to these germs, noted Dr. Marc Romney, one of the study's authors.

The study is small and very preliminary. "But it's an intriguing finding" that needs to be further researched, said Romney, medical microbiologist at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver.

The hospital is the closest one to the poor Downtown Eastside neighborhood near the city's waterfront. Romney said he and his colleagues did the research after seeing a simultaneous boom in bedbugs and MRSA cases from the neighborhood.

Five bedbugs were crushed and analyzed. MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, was found on three bugs. MRSA is resistant to several types of common antibiotics and can become deadly if it gets through the skin and into the bloodstream.

Two bugs had VRE, or vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium, a less dangerous form of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Both germs are often seen in hospitals, and experts have been far more worried about nurses and other health care workers spreading the bacteria than insects.

It's not clear if the bacteria originated with the bedbugs or if the bugs picked it up from already infected people, Romney added.

The study was released Wednesday by Emerging Infectious Diseases, a publication of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Worldwide interest as Canada drug program in court (AP)

VANCOUVER, British Columbia � The woman stands close to a mirror fingering her throat. Then, sweeping back a mane of red hair, she injects heroin into her jugular vein. A nurse keeps an eye on her from behind.

The scene unfolds in North America's first and only legal injection site, promoted by its founders as a safe, humane facility for drug abusers, now facing a court challenge from a government that sees it as a facilitator of drug abuse.

Defenders of the taxpayer-funded site, in a seedy, drug-infested district of Vancouver, British Columbia, say it is a providing a form of health care, and that health care is a provincial matter under Canada's constitution. The federal government counters that its writ trumps provincial rights because heroin is a federally banned substance.

The case opens before the Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa on Thursday, and has drawn international attention. Insite, as the Vancouver center is called, is the only facility of its kind in Canada. More could open if the top court agrees Insite is legal.

As of 2009, there were 65 injection facilities in 27 cities in Canada, Australia, and western Europe, according to the Canadian Medical Association Journal. The World Health Organization has called them a "priority intervention" in slowing the spread of AIDS via infected needles.

Insite receives more than 800 visitors a day on average and has supervised more than a million injections since it opened in 2003, and none has caused a death, according to Insite supervisor Russ Maynard.

Addicts are given clean needles and sterilized water in which to mix their drug. They bring their own drugs and inject at 12 stainless steel alcoves with mirrors on the walls so nurses on a raised platform can see them.

The storefront facility sits in Downtown Eastside, 15 blocks of cheap rooming houses where addiction and street prostitution are rampant and an estimated 5,000 of the area's 12,000 population are believed to be addicts.

When Insite opened, the Bush administration's drug czar, John Walters, called it "state-sponsored suicide," and after a Conservative government was elected in Canada in 2006, it moved to close the site.

Arguing for the government before the British Columbia Court of Appeal in 2009, Robert Frater rejected the notion that Insite was a form of health care, because it was not the ban on drugs that harms addicts.

"There is no constitutional obligation on the state to provide safe-injection rooms," he said.

The provincial court ruled 2-1 against the federal government.

Supporters of Insite point to studies showing sharp drops in deaths from drug overdoses in the district since the drug-injection program was launched.

"I think it's saying we're effective. We're meeting our mandate," Maynard said. He said Vancouver also needs a safe-inhalation facility for crack users, while Ontario and Quebec need safe-injection sites like Vancouver's.

Julio Montaner, president of the International AIDS Society, an association of professionals in the AIDS field, has said the area's AIDS rate is the worst in the developed world, and can be designated an epidemic. Montaner, a Canadian, accuses his government of ignoring scientific research and sabotaging a health initiative for society's weakest citizens.

In 2008 the then federal health minister, Tony Clement, told the Canadian Medical Association that the Conservative government opposed Insite because "injections are not medicine and they do not heal."

Dr. Bonnie Cham, then head of the CMA's ethics committee, responded that addicts who inject drugs "have the right to compassion and access to care that has proven to be beneficial."

Last week the Conservative Party was elected to another term.

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Study: Many elderly get colon screening too often (AP)

CHICAGO � Many older Americans get repeat colon cancer tests they don't need and Medicare is paying for it, suggests a study that spotlights unnecessary risks to the elderly and a waste of money.

Almost half of the Medicare patients in the study had had a colonoscopy less than seven years after getting normal results from an earlier test. The test is recommended just every 10 years, starting at age 50, for people at average risk whose initial test is normal.

The study showed that among those 80 and older, one-third had a repeat exam within seven years of the previous colonoscopy. That's an age group that can skip the test altogether if no problems have been spotted before.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends against routine colon cancer screening for most people 76 to 85 � and says for those older than 85, screening risks outweigh the benefits.

The older you are, the more likely you are to die from other causes before cancer becomes deadly, which means the screening procedure's risks may outweigh its benefits in many aged patients, the study authors said.

"I was surprised by the magnitude of the issue," said lead author Dr. James Goodwin, a geriatrician and researcher at University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.

In the study, researchers chose a random national sample of Medicare claims and enrollment data from more than 200,000 patients over 65 who received colonoscopies between 2001 and 2008. The number of patients in the sample totaled 24,071 � all people considered at normal risk for colon cancer.

The results suggest most of the repeat exams were unnecessary; only 27 percent of all study patients with frequent exams had symptoms that might have raised suspicion of cancer, including abdominal pain, change in bowel habits, and weight loss. The study appears in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine.

The colonoscopy is considered one of the most effective screening tests available, and it's credited with saving thousands of lives by catching cancer early. The doctor uses a thin flexible tube to examine the intestines. It can snip off suspicious-looking growths.

The exam is generally pretty safe, but does have risks that occur more often with older patients, including complications from sedation, accidental perforation of the colon and bleeding.

Medicare covers colonoscopies every 10 years � more frequently for high-risk patients, including those with a family history of colon cancer. But in this study, the authors excluded high-risk patients.

Colonoscopy costs vary widely but typically exceed $1,000. While Medicare rules say the government won't pay for too-frequent colonoscopies, only 2 percent of the study claims were denied for repeat exams in people without symptoms.

The results suggest the Medicare regulation "is not working," Goodwin said.

Excessive colonoscopies are not just economically costly, he said, noting they can pose a real harm to patients, especially older ones.

Robert Smith, director of cancer screening at the American Cancer Society, said some doctors may recommend more frequent colonoscopies because they think 10-year intervals are too risky. Some may think, incorrectly, that finding any growths, even non-suspicious polyps, means a repeat exam should be done within less than 10 years, Smith said.

Some doctors also order repeat tests "because they want to bring in income," he said.

Besides being risky and costly, too-frequent screenings make colonoscopy resources less available for people who really need them, Smith said.

But, he pointed out, while colonoscopies may be overused in the elderly, the exams and other colon cancer screening methods are underused among some groups, including the uninsured, blacks and Hispanics.

The government's Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued a statement in response to the study, saying the agency recognizes the importance of effective screening as well as "the importance of ensuring Medicare beneficiaries only get screened at appropriate intervals."

Medicare covers the exams every two years for high-risk patients, but if the study results are true, "then we need to further validate the accuracy of our payments," said agency spokeswoman Ellen Griffith.

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