Dangerous Staph Germs Found at West Coast Beaches

A day at the beach? Shower afterward. Sand, water can hold dangerous staph germs, study finds

By MARILYNN MARCHIONE AP Medical Writer
Abc News

A young boy runs his dog at Seattle's Golden Gardens beach as seen in this 2009 Seattle, Wash.,..

A young boy runs his dog at Seattle's Golden Gardens beach as seen in this 2009 Seattle, Wash., landscape photo. Dangerous staph bacteria have been found in sand and water for the first time at five public beaches along the coast of Washington, and scientists think the state is not the only one with this problem.

(Getty Images/Reuters)

Dangerous staph bacteria have been found in sand and water for the first time at five public beaches along the coast of Washington, and scientists think the state is not the only one with this problem.

The germ is MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus — a hard-to-treat bug once rarely seen outside of hospitals but that increasingly is spreading in ordinary community settings such as schools, locker rooms and gyms.

The germ causes nasty skin infections as well as pneumonia and other life-threatening problems. It spreads mostly through human contact. Little is known about environmental sources that also may harbor the germ.

Finding it at the beach suggests one place that people may be picking it up, said Marilyn Roberts, a microbiologist at the University of Washington in Seattle."We don't know the risk" for any individual going to a beach, she said. "But the fact that we found these organisms suggests that the level is much higher than we had thought." Read more...