I’ve spoken at many medical conferences since co-founding the Peggy Lillis Foundation for C. diff Education & Advocacy following my mother’s death from a C. difficile infection in 2010. Unfortunately, I am often the only patient advocate. The pressure of representing patients in a group of hundreds of clinicians, scientists, and administrators can be intimidating. But for the most part, I have always felt welcome and valued.
One of my favorites …
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Conferences’ duty of care in the face of discriminatory health policy
Most bacteria never have a breakout year. But when the nerve center for the nation’s fight against deadly diseases last fall ranked C. diff. first among the three most “urgent” threats to public health, an overdue spotlight shone on an epidemic that much of the press overlooked for decades.
Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) weren’t the only ones calling attention to the threat from C. diff last …
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Public awareness of C. difficile must rise
I have been struggling with a certain degree of cognitive dissonance following the announcement this winter of a study in the New England Journal of Medicine on the efficacy of fecal transplants as a therapy for clostridium difficile (C. diff) infections. While the study is the first to demonstrate the effectiveness of fecal transplants in treating recurrent C. diff infections (15 of the 16 patients in the group were cured …
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The revulsion about feces: Get over it
As the Supreme Court deliberates the Affordable Care Act, Americans should take a closer look at the commonsense reforms embedded in the law, including those that strengthen public health. Fixation on the law’s individual mandate has overlooked the law’s very important benefits for public health.
Lost amid the rhetoric about individual liberty is the public interest and common good of protecting all Americans from the costly and deadly menace of preventable …
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How the Affordable Care Act combats preventable hospital infections
