Danger Signals

Despite medical advances, man continues to take chances with his health. To combat this familiar pattern, doctors across the country last week issued warnings against three current follies.

P: Physicians attending a Manhattan seminar reported that lax personal hygiene, particularly in hospitals, has canceled many of the gains of modern medicine. According to Dr. Robert Elston of the American Public Health Association, many hospital staffers believe that antibiotics have made frequent hand washing unnecessary. But the A.P.H.A. reports that about 5% of all patients now incur infections during their hospital stays. Almost 40% of nurses, for example, were found to carry resistant strains of infection-producing bacteria. An unpublished study by the faculty of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons identified even worse offenders: "One of the most persistent purveyors of germs in a given hospital department is the chief of that unit. Because he is at the top of the pecking order, no one may effectively question his approach, procedure or sanitary practices."

P:A team of Chicago doctors criticized the aerosol bronchial sprays that asthma sufferers, among others, increasingly use to help open constricted bronchial passages. After a detailed study, Drs. George Taylor and Willard Harris reported that some sprays produced abnormal heart rhythms in mice, rats and dogs. They also warned that Freon--the heavier-than-air gas used as a propellant in many of the bronchial nebulizers--is absorbed into the blood through the lungs and affects the heart. This may be responsible for the rising death rate among spray users during the past ten years. Published reports show more than 50 unexpected deaths following inhalation of sprays containing pressurized gas, many among asthmatics seeking relief. Several victims had exhausted as many as two containers of pressured spray shortly before death. In a few cases, the evidence was even stronger; the victims were clutching empty pressure-nebulizers when they were found.

P: Two Los Angeles physicians expressed concern over the belief, held by a growing number of drug addicts, that milk is capable of neutralizing the effects of heroin. Apparently believing that pushers use powdered lactose to dilute--and thus enlarge--their supplies, some addicts inject themselves with milk in an attempt to offset an overdose. The results are dangerous indeed, since milk contains proteins and fats that produce severe reactions when introduced directly into the bloodstream. According to Drs. Ernst Drenick and Kenneth Younger, one heroin addict whose friends injected milk into his veins became comatose and required extensive emergency treatment before he recovered. Two others were not so fortunate. One suffered permanent brain damage after he mainlined milk; the other died.

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