Joshua Dean, one of the first whistleblowers to allege Spirit AeroSystems execs had ignored manufacturing defects on the 737 MAX, died after a sudden illness.
Hi! I’m a microbiologist and you have some facts either without useful context or that are just incorrect.
MRSA is methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The methicillin resistance is notable as it shows a resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics, which constitutes a large portion of antibiotics in use in medicine.
MRSA is “easy to catch” in that it lives harmlessly on the skin of about 2% of the global population, but MRSA bacteremia, a pathogenic MRSA infection, is actually pretty uncommon, at around 400,000 people a year worldwide, of which around 100k people die. That’s nothing. The common cold, the influenza viruses, infect an estimated over 1 billion people annually and kill an estimated 400,000, and they’re pretty mild but they’re rather infectious.
MRSA is typically easy to treat - that’s why about 75% of patients live - with the remainder either having an infection in an unfortunate location, like the blood, immune deficiency, a strain of MRSA that happens to not be susceptible to available antibiotics, or just a lack of prompt treatment.
On the conspiracy bullshit part, I could absolutely give someone MRSA pneumonia, a particularly fatal form of both MRSA infections and pneumonia in general. What could be telling is determining his initial infection. If it was MRSA, sequencing that particular infection (or at least looking for the presence of notable genes using rtPCR) to determine its likely origin could be insightful. Without knowing the identity of his primary infection, though, we’re left at guessing.
What IS interesting is that both Boeing whistleblowers have died from relatively uncommon causes, suicide and pneumonia in a healthy individual, in rapid succession. That’s one hell of a coincidence.
MRSA is typically easy to treat - that’s why about 75% of patients live
So 25% die even when under treatment? That seems high. A similar mortality rate is the untreated form of dengue fever, severe dengue. Am I totally off the mark?
The answer is it depends. It’s about 23.5% worldwide if I recall correctly, though I’m having trouble finding the paper I originally pulled that figure from. The paper linked puts it around 30-40%. Keep in mind that MRSA is pretty prevalent, so most people who have it have a commensal “infection” that just hangs out on their skin and, even if it does become pathogenic, it’s often subclinical, so many of the less serious cases go unreported. It’s only when it’s pretty bad or when people are undergoing medical treatment already that it’s actually discovered and even then often not in a way that can be reported. On top of this, treatment varies depending on numerous factors, so areas with fewer medical resources will have significantly higher mortality rates.
I mean, I’m not trying to play DA for shitty-ass Boeing here, but coincidences do happen. I’m certainly more likely to believe this death was a result of bad luck than the suicide from a guy who told his family, and I quote: “If anything happens, it’s not suicide.”
Oh, totally. It’s possible it’s a coincidence, it’s just also possible that it was Boeing. I’m withholding my final judgment because I can’t know either way with any surety, but I’d be incredibly unsurprised if, were we to ever determine a definite cause plus the existence of a perpetrator, that it was Boeing. Either way, fuck Boeing.
If I was one of the remaining five recent whistleblowers, I’d be looking over my shoulder hard right now.
“healthy” when he went to the hospital for breathing issues before getting pneumonia.
Man had COVID. He was immunocompromised and got MRSA in his blood from intubation. This isn’t unheard of insanity: intubation is a risky maneuver because it kills people like this all the time.
When your response requires you to quote information out of context and to fill in information you don’t have with guesses (COVID and immunocompromisation), you’re just making things up to suit your belief. Your premise is that other people are just making things up to suit their beliefs. I’ll just stop there.
He was listed as having issues before going to the hospital. They said “otherwise healthy” in the same paragraph as “went to the hospital for trouble breathing”
COVID is still a raging pandemic no matter how far you shove your head up your own ass.
There you go again, making up things so you can make a point. No one ever said or even hinted COVID isn’t present, although I’d argue it is now and will for the foreseeable future be firmly endemic. I’m a microbiologist, remember? I actually worked in public health for years. We tend to believe in science.
There are also numerous things that aren’t COVID that can cause pneumonia. Until we know what that might have been in this case, any statements claiming with any surety that COVID caused these symptoms are purely supposition.
Edit: Oh no! OP caught that I accidentally posted and immediately deleted this comment on my old .world account. Such scandal!
The way you phrase that is troubling. Intubation doesn’t kill people. People get intubated because they’re going to die without it. Every invasive procedure has its risks, and those are weighed before doing it.
Intubation is risky because the act of intubation itself can introduce deadly pathogens, like MRSA, into the lungs.
Catheterization kills people too, for similar reasons.
People get intubated because they will die without it, meaning the risk of dying from intubation outweighs the guarantee of dying without it.
Intubation is more likely than not going to give you a nasty infection. More than 60% if patients intubated during the pandemic caught some form of secondary infection from the process.
Hi! I’m a microbiologist and you have some facts either without useful context or that are just incorrect.
MRSA is methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The methicillin resistance is notable as it shows a resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics, which constitutes a large portion of antibiotics in use in medicine.
MRSA is “easy to catch” in that it lives harmlessly on the skin of about 2% of the global population, but MRSA bacteremia, a pathogenic MRSA infection, is actually pretty uncommon, at around 400,000 people a year worldwide, of which around 100k people die. That’s nothing. The common cold, the influenza viruses, infect an estimated over 1 billion people annually and kill an estimated 400,000, and they’re pretty mild but they’re rather infectious.
MRSA is typically easy to treat - that’s why about 75% of patients live - with the remainder either having an infection in an unfortunate location, like the blood, immune deficiency, a strain of MRSA that happens to not be susceptible to available antibiotics, or just a lack of prompt treatment.
On the conspiracy bullshit part, I could absolutely give someone MRSA pneumonia, a particularly fatal form of both MRSA infections and pneumonia in general. What could be telling is determining his initial infection. If it was MRSA, sequencing that particular infection (or at least looking for the presence of notable genes using rtPCR) to determine its likely origin could be insightful. Without knowing the identity of his primary infection, though, we’re left at guessing.
What IS interesting is that both Boeing whistleblowers have died from relatively uncommon causes, suicide and pneumonia in a healthy individual, in rapid succession. That’s one hell of a coincidence.
Fuck Boeing.
So 25% die even when under treatment? That seems high. A similar mortality rate is the untreated form of dengue fever, severe dengue. Am I totally off the mark?
This is a good paper that gives an overview of MRSA related stats: StatPearls - Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus.
The answer is it depends. It’s about 23.5% worldwide if I recall correctly, though I’m having trouble finding the paper I originally pulled that figure from. The paper linked puts it around 30-40%. Keep in mind that MRSA is pretty prevalent, so most people who have it have a commensal “infection” that just hangs out on their skin and, even if it does become pathogenic, it’s often subclinical, so many of the less serious cases go unreported. It’s only when it’s pretty bad or when people are undergoing medical treatment already that it’s actually discovered and even then often not in a way that can be reported. On top of this, treatment varies depending on numerous factors, so areas with fewer medical resources will have significantly higher mortality rates.
Thanks for the reply.
I mean, I’m not trying to play DA for shitty-ass Boeing here, but coincidences do happen. I’m certainly more likely to believe this death was a result of bad luck than the suicide from a guy who told his family, and I quote: “If anything happens, it’s not suicide.”
Oh, totally. It’s possible it’s a coincidence, it’s just also possible that it was Boeing. I’m withholding my final judgment because I can’t know either way with any surety, but I’d be incredibly unsurprised if, were we to ever determine a definite cause plus the existence of a perpetrator, that it was Boeing. Either way, fuck Boeing.
If I was one of the remaining five recent whistleblowers, I’d be looking over my shoulder hard right now.
“healthy” when he went to the hospital for breathing issues before getting pneumonia.
Man had COVID. He was immunocompromised and got MRSA in his blood from intubation. This isn’t unheard of insanity: intubation is a risky maneuver because it kills people like this all the time.
When your response requires you to quote information out of context and to fill in information you don’t have with guesses (COVID and immunocompromisation), you’re just making things up to suit your belief. Your premise is that other people are just making things up to suit their beliefs. I’ll just stop there.
He was listed as having issues before going to the hospital. They said “otherwise healthy” in the same paragraph as “went to the hospital for trouble breathing”
COVID is still a raging pandemic no matter how far you shove your head up your own ass.
There you go again, making up things so you can make a point. No one ever said or even hinted COVID isn’t present, although I’d argue it is now and will for the foreseeable future be firmly endemic. I’m a microbiologist, remember? I actually worked in public health for years. We tend to believe in science.
There are also numerous things that aren’t COVID that can cause pneumonia. Until we know what that might have been in this case, any statements claiming with any surety that COVID caused these symptoms are purely supposition.
Edit: Oh no! OP caught that I accidentally posted and immediately deleted this comment on my old .world account. Such scandal!
deleted by creator
The way you phrase that is troubling. Intubation doesn’t kill people. People get intubated because they’re going to die without it. Every invasive procedure has its risks, and those are weighed before doing it.
Intubation is risky because the act of intubation itself can introduce deadly pathogens, like MRSA, into the lungs.
Catheterization kills people too, for similar reasons.
People get intubated because they will die without it, meaning the risk of dying from intubation outweighs the guarantee of dying without it.
Intubation is more likely than not going to give you a nasty infection. More than 60% if patients intubated during the pandemic caught some form of secondary infection from the process.
That is what I said.