03/03/05

LC050303

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

It's cropped up in jails, playing fields and hospitals, but
should you be worried about a new type of staph infection?

Dr. Peter Miao>> I don't want to alarm everybody, but we are
seeing communities-acquired infections that are due to MRSA in
people who have never been in a hospital or never had surgery or
never had antibiotics.

Val>> And then, a remarkable documentary about the friendship
between a man and a flock of wild parrots, but does this film
have wings?

It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times.

Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> You've probably heard of a common infection called a
staph infection. It's caused by a common bacteria,
staphylococcus. Now normally, it responds to antibiotics, but
recently there's been a new, more potent form of staph bacteria,
one that's proving resistant to antibiotics. As Toni Guinyard
tells us, health officials are concerned.

Toni Guinyard>> We touch each other every day usually without
considering the transfer of germs, but doctors are now warning
the public to think twice before reaching out to touch someone
or something. They're seeing an increase in a strain of
staphylococcus aureus, the bacteria commonly known as staph.

Dr. Jonathan Fielding>> It can occur on abrasions, a cut in the
skin, or sometimes on intact skin, and it can be red and raised
and can get pus inside it. It's something we usually call a
boil, sometimes an abscess or just a big pimple.

Toni Guinyard>> Dr. Jonathan Fielding is Director of Public
Health for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.
He points out that twenty-five to thirty percent of the
population carries the bacteria in their noses or on their hands
without any sign of infection. But over the past few years,
there has been an increase in a strain of staph that is
resistant to a family of widely-used antibiotics. It's called
MRSA.

Dr. Jonathan Fielding>> It means Methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus Aureus.

Dr. Peter Miao>> It complicates what I do if I only have four
antibiotics that I can use for certain infections and the
patient happens to be resistant, sensitive or allergic to three
of the antibiotics. Now I'm stuck with one.

Toni Guinyard>> Dr. Peter Miao is an internist and infectious
disease specialist at Sherman Oaks Hospital in Sherman Oaks. He
is the hospital's chairman of Infection Control. He says just
thirty years ago, most antibiotics used were effective in
treating staph infections.

Dr. Peter Miao>> Now the opposite. We're seeing more and more
resistance, resistance, resistance and only very few sensitive.

Toni Guinyard>> What is that telling you?

Dr. Peter Miao>> That's telling me the bugs are winning, in a
sense. As time goes on, they're learning to adapt, they're
learning to become resistant to the antibiotics that we have and
that we have to find more or newer antibiotics to try and
overcome these resistant organisms, the so-called super bugs.

Dr. Jonathan Fielding>> There have been outbreaks in sports
teams, in some neonatal units and a bunch of different places
around and there's no question that this has increased all
around the country. We don't know exactly why.

Toni Guinyard>> What they do know is that staph has been around
for a long time. It's not uncommon for hospital patients to
contract antibiotic-resistant staph infections.

Dr. Jonathan Fielding>> Hospital-acquired MRSA as opposed to
community has been with us a long time. It's been with us for
decades and it's the result of a lot of antibiotic use within
healthcare institutions, particularly hospitals, and that has
grown staph that is resistant to a number of classes of
antibiotics.

Alan Cronin>> I never really found out the results of what a
staph infection can do until after this happened to me, after I
acquired a staph infection.

Toni Guinyard>> Simi Valley resident, Alan Cronin, contracted a
staph infection after a hernia operation in 1998.

Alan Cronin>> And after I came out of the coma and realized
what had happened to me, that's when I really started learning
anything at all about how deadly staph infections can be.

>> "Let's see how it is when you lay down and when we put some
pressure on it."

Alan Cronin>> The hospital had to amputate my legs and arms to
save my life because the staph infection that I had acquired was
causing gangrene to settle into my limbs because of the lack of
circulation.

Toni Guinyard>> We met with Alan as he was being fitted for
prosthetic legs.

>> "You're not even close to getting down in that, are you?"

Toni Guinyard>> Alan has become somewhat of an expert about
staph infections, forced to learn from his own situation. He is
a one-man force fighting to educate the public.

Alan Cronin>> We hear about them all the time and people that
say, well, you know, geez, that's a horrible thing, but they
never think it's going to happen to them. It's a real scary
thing and I just don't think enough is being done about it.

Alan Cronin>> "It is pretty tight."

>> "The leg's getting bigger. That's all there is to it. You
want to try standing up or not?"

Alan Cronin>> "No."

Alan Cronin>> You know, I'm not angry and I don't want to be
angry, but it's really disappointing for me after this has
happened to me just to see additional staph infections in
various hospitals.

Toni Guinyard>> Even more frightening is the spread of a strain
of staph resistant to antibiotics.

Alan Cronin>> You know, if I can get a staph infection and
almost die, then it can happen to anybody.

Toni Guinyard>> Consider this: while Alan contracted the common
form of staph in an outpatient medical facility, the concern now
is the somewhat alarming spike in the number of antibiotic-
resistant cases found in the community, so-called community-
acquired MRSA.

Dr. Peter Miao>> I don't want to alarm everybody, but we are
seeing community-acquired infections that are due to MRSA in
people who have never been in a hospital, never had surgery,
never had antibiotics.

Toni Guinyard>> In 2002, an outbreak was first reported among
Los Angeles County jail inmates. The jail sees an average of
one hundred eighty to two hundred new cases each month.

Dr. Jonathan Fielding>> When we started out, of the cases we
found in the jail, only nine percent were coming in from the
community already with MRSA. Now that percentage is at least
twenty-five percent, so part of what we're seeing in the jail is
that there's a lot more in the community and people coming into
the jail are more likely to have MRSA than before.

Toni Guinyard>> The Centers for Disease Control has already
investigated outbreaks of MRSA among athletes, military recruits
and even children. Environment does not seem to play a
significant role in its transmission, but overcrowded living
conditions and poor hygiene are factors.

Dr. Jonathan Fielding>> Skin to skin is absolutely one of the
ways that it can be transmitted and we certainly have seen
situations where it's been transmitted that way.

Dr. Peter Miao>> There was at one time an infectious disease
conference and they did a study, set up observers, and saw how
many people actually go in and out of the bathroom and wash
their hands or not. I don't want to tell you the answer.

Toni Guinyard>> Oh, go ahead and tell me.

Dr. Peter Miao>> There were quite a few that did not wash their
hands.

Toni Guinyard>> And that raises concerns about how easily the
bacteria can be transferred as we go about our day-to-day
routines at home, at work or at play.

Dr. Jonathan Fielding>> In your average gym, this is not going
to be a significant problem. Is there a possibility that, you
know, somebody could contract it from somebody else there?
Sure, but there's a lot of other places that that could occur as
well, so I don't think there's any reason for people to be
afraid to go to gyms. But they shouldn't share personal
articles and they should observe good hygiene.

Dr. Peter Miao>> With the bugs getting smarter, hopefully we're
a little smarter than the bugs and we're one step ahead and we
can find new antibiotics that will help take care of that.

Toni Guinyard>> For now, antibiotic-resistant staph is part of
our lives, forcing us to think twice before we touch. I'm Toni
Guinyard for Life and Times.

Val>> If you should have a staph infection, the only way to
tell if it's resistant to antibiotics is to have a culture done.
In the meantime, the best way to prevent the spread of germs is
to wash your hands for twenty to thirty seconds with warm soap
and water often.

Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and
Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, transcripts
and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most
interesting features. Just go to kcet.org and click on "Life
and Times".

Val>> Is the thought of getting older a frightening one? Well,
that depends on how old you are. Young adults, people in their
twenties and thirties, are increasingly anxious about the
thought of getting older, but older people say, hey, this isn't
bad at all. The survey is featured in AARP Magazine and was
conducted in partnership with USC. Hena Cuevas talked with a
USC gerontologist about what's behind these very different
perceptions of aging.

Hena Cuevas>> Tell me a little bit about that new study that
you conducted with the AARP.

Merril Silverstein>> Well, we partnered with AARP to replicate
a study that was done in 1994 about the public's attitudes,
perceptions, anxieties, about aging and older people, the older
population, to see how things have changed over the last ten
years.

Hena Cuevas>> What was one of the most surprising differences
between the study back in 1994 and the study that you just
conducted?

Merril Silverstein>> Well, there were several. One is that we
asked people a series of twenty questions which was basically a
quiz about their knowledge of aging. People seemed to have more
accurate pictures of what it means to age normally, that is
decline in senses, a decline in eyesight and hearing, as well as
a slowing of reflexes. But there is also an increase in the
perception that older people are senile. That, we think, is a
warning sign, a negative sign, about how the public views the
older population.

Hena Cuevas>> So most of the respondents thought that old
people, being old, equates being senile?

Merril Silverstein>> About thirty percent said that and that
was particularly true among the young adults who were eighteen
to twenty-five. That's where, I think, the negative stereotypes
have taken some root.

Hena Cuevas>> Why do you think that was the case?

Merril Silverstein>> Well, I think there's been in the media
images of older people that have been less than flattering. If
you look at many television programs, you see images of older
people who are cranky, who need help, who are frail, and these
images sit in peoples' minds and give them very negative
impressions about the whole older population, the entire
population. I think part of it is that.

In addition to emphasis on remedies for aging with Botox and
even legitimate interventions like taking antioxidants, the
spotlight has been put on aging as a double-edged sword. Part
of that is inducing fear and anxiety in the younger population
and part of it is producing healthy anxiety about changing
behaviors. Then there's the dark side which is really
stigmatizing older people as being senile and helpless and
frail.

Hena Cuevas>> How surprised were you when you saw the increase
in the anxiety levels among the twenty and thirty year olds?

Merril Silverstein>> Well, we were surprised in one way and not
surprised in another. It's not surprising to see younger people
expressing anxiety because of how far away the aging process
will be for them and people are generally more afraid of the
unknown. As people get closer to old age, they see that it's
not as threatening, it's not as dire, it's not as tragic as
younger people think.

Hena Cuevas>> Do you think this anxiety is tied in any way with
our obsession with youth?

Merril Silverstein>> Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think the culture
of youth, as we call it, is alive and well. In fact, I think
it's growing and I mentioned Botox and other interventions to
get rid of wrinkles, to dye your hair, tremendous pressure, I
think, to eliminate the signs of aging. In fact, that's one of
the major anxieties we see among young adults in their twenties
and thirties that they're going to be demonstrating the signs of
aging and the stigmas attached to that.

Now I have to say that older people do not see that as a stigma.
The older you get, the fewer anxieties people have. As you
approach old age, you realize that wrinkles don't hurt. You
realize that life can be good after sixty-five. But the anxiety
in the twenty and thirty year old group is very prominent, I
think, and this is something we need to address.

Hena Cuevas>> How is this information going to be helpful?

Merril Silverstein>> I think it's going to alert the population
-- and AARP is keen on this as well -- alert the population of
what people need to know about aging. I think a little anxiety
is helpful. It helps you prepare in terms of savings, in terms
of health behaviors and so on. But too much anxiety is a
reflection, I think, of stereotypes that are very negative. We
have a term in gerontology called "elder bashing" that is
blaming the elderly for everything, all the social ills of
society, and I think we've seen a slight increase in that.

There's also the idea that generations are in conflict with each
other. Those kinds of conflicts are real, but represent a small
proportion of the population which I think is growing. But in
terms of the percent who support older people, it's about ninety
percent. Ninety percent of the population say that older people
do not have too much power, that they have just enough power.
In fact, many say that older people have too little power.

Hena Cuevas>> How can these perceptions be changed or improved?

Merril Silverstein>> Well, I think some of it can occur as
young as grade school. Having older people visit classrooms and
talk about the aging experience. Other studies have shown
tremendous amounts of age segregation. I would say fewer than
ten percent of people in their twenties even associate with an
older person outside of their family. So getting more
integration between age groups, having more exposure to older
adults, as well as formal education about aging, about what to
expect when you make a transition to teenager, young adulthood,
middle age and old age, I think, can help.

Hena Cuevas>> So are you ready then for the next survey in the
next ten years? Already thinking about it?

Merril Silverstein>> We absolutely are. We're thinking of this
survey as a barometer of attitudes toward aging which will occur
every ten years. We'd actually like to do it every five years
because the pace of social change and the aging of the baby
boomers is occurring at such a rate now that entry into old age
will start occurring in just a few years. That will accelerate
as the baby boomers get into the senior years, so we want to
really keep tabs of how the public is thinking about aging and
old people.

Hena Cuevas>> Very important information as our population
ages. Thank you very much, Dr. Silverstein.

Merril Silverstein>> Thank you.

To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us
by mail at this address:

Life and Times
4401 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90027

You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or
contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org.

Larry Mantle>> Welcome to FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm
Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC. Our first film this week is the
sequel to the nearly decade old "Get Shorty" starring John
Travolta in the role of Chili Palmer. This time around, Chili
is in the music business in the film "Be Cool".

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> I'm joined this week by film critics Lael
Loewenstein of Variety and Andy Klein of CityBEAT and
ValleyBEAT. Well, Lael, "Be Cool"?

Lael Loewenstein>> Larry, this is a real problem for me. I had
so many great expectations of this movie because John Travolta
really, for so much of his career, has personified what it is to
be cool, so it seemed like a perfect title. But this was really
just an unmitigated mess. It fell completely flat in everything
from the direction, from the pacing, the jokes. There were just
a few kind of supporting characters that worked for me. Vince
Vaughn is a record producer who thinks he's black, and The Rock
is also kind of lampooning himself as a gay Samoan bodyguard.
But, you know, it just didn't work. It was so lacking. They
start with a riff on sequels and it was just every reason that
you shouldn't make a sequel to me and every reason that Travolta
shouldn't make another sequel.

Larry Mantle>> What did you think, Andy?

Andy Klein>> A mess, but I think a very mitigated mess. I
responded much more favorably than Lael did. Indeed this feels
very thrown together. It has some of that loose feel of "Oceans
Twelve", but way more so. Still, I found it very funny almost
through the entire thing, particularly because of these
supporting players. I thought Travolta was just fine and I
thought he was cool, but you've got The Rock and I felt he was
terrific and was a perfect part. Vince Vaughn may overdo it,
but he's a lot of fun. Cedric the Entertainer, terrific. All
these people get to do a lot of interesting stuff and a lot of
funny stuff. As loose as it all was and as much as it all just
kind of rambles along until it's over, I really enjoyed this.

Larry Mantle>> And same screenwriter as the first one adapting
Elmore Leonard's or different this time around?

Andy Klein>> Different guy.

Lael Loewenstein>> But Elmore Leonard's voice was there. It
just wasn't nearly as funny as the first one obviously.

Larry Mantle>> You both liked the first sketch?

Andy Klein>> Oh, yeah.

Lael Loewenstein>> Loved it. I really enjoyed it, but this one
just -- it wasn't there for me.

Larry Mantle>> Next up, we have the psychological time-travel
thriller, "The Jacket", starring Academy Awarding-winning actor,
Adrien Brody.

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> Andy Klein, what did you think of "The Jacket"?

Andy Klein>> I really liked "The Jacket". It's a very tricky
sort of film. It's in a genre that I have a lot of problems
with a lot of the time, which is to say it's a time-travel film
and they never make any sense. This one doesn't make sense
either, but I don't think it's so important. Adrien Brody plays
a GI who gets wounded, in fact, who gets killed in Desert Storm,
but he manages to be resuscitated. This guy has amnesia, he
seems to have no past really at all and nothing good ever
happens to him.

Within ten minutes of the film, he's locked up in a mental
hospital where Kris Kristofferson is a doctor doing evil
experiments. They shove this guy in a drawer in a straight
jacket, in a morgue drawer actually, and leave him there for
like hours at a time. The second time they do this, he suddenly
finds himself standing by a roadside and he's projected himself
somehow into a future reality. He's able to go back and forth
and try and influence things. Well, maybe he's really there and
maybe this is all going on in his head. Maybe he never made it
out of Iraq. I mean, you don't really know.

It's played very ambiguously. You're so tightly tied to his POB
that I think a number of interpretations all could have equal
validity here. But is very engaging. Adrien Brody is terrific
and it's so nice to see him get another lead part. He's
supposed to be not a conventional leading man, but I don't see
the problem. He's really good here and he's a romantic lead and
there's no problem with that. It's directed in a very, very
stylish way by John Maybury who did the Francis Bacon film,
"Love is the Devil". This is even more stylish, I think, and
just really intriguing. If you're going to nitpick every point,
it may fall apart. But as the world's biggest nitpicker, I
wasn't bothered.

Larry Mantle>> And finally this week, we have the documentary
"The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill" which tells the story of a
San Francisco street musician's love for his wild parrots.

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill". What did
you think of it, Lael?

Lael Loewenstein>> You know, I really enjoyed this movie,
Larry. I started out thinking this seems a very slight subject
for a film about this kind of quirky eccentric guy who lives in
San Francisco's Telegraph Hill and has this relationship with
these parrots. I thought, well, this is just odd and he's
really anthropomorphizing them and he's just this eccentric kind
of kook. As this movie went along, I really started to enjoy it
more.

What I realized was that he is actually aware of our critiques
and opinions about him and at one point in the film, which is
really interesting, he sort of turns the tables on us and
addresses our comments and thoughts about him. You almost feel
kind of chastened. He says a lot of people feel like I
anthropomorphize, but I think we're all guilty of eccentricity.
I just thought it was a very lovely film and it reminded me of
what I love about my home town of San Francisco.

Larry Mantle>> What did you think, Andy?

Andy Klein>> It reminded me of everything I love and hate about
the Bay Area. I was much less sympathetic. The birds are
fascinating. His assumptions about the birds, his analysis of
their characters, I found totally interesting, but this film is
sort of so precious in a certain way and so kind of kicked back,
you know, laid back, relaxed to the point where I was getting
impatient. It just has that everything that Southern
Californian's saying nasty about the Bay Area I feel is in this
film. I mean, the New Age, the guitar music noodling around in
the background and the supposed surprise ending which I thought
was both twee and also just made me feel like I'd been ripped
off for the rest of the film.

Lael Loewenstein>> I totally disagree. I liked the surprise
ending. It worked for me.

Larry Mantle>> Thanks for joining us for another edition of
FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC
joined by critics Andy Klein of CityBEAT and ValleyBEAT, and
Lael Loewenstein of Variety. Please join us again another time
for another edition of FilmWeek on Life and Times.

Val>> And, of course, you can hear a full hour of FilmWeek
every Friday morning at 11:00 a.m. on KPCC 89.3. And that's our
program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times,
thanks for watching. We'll see you tomorrow.

Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> Next time on Life and Times --

Hospitals are clambering to hire nurses, but where can people go
for a fast-track nursing degree?

>> They took one look at me and said, "You might be interested
in an accelerated program." (Laughter)

Val>> That's next time on Life and Times.