http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/12/31/ap4483381.html"In a...

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/12/31/ap4483381.html


"In a British study published last year, drug-resistant staph germs survived for three days on stainless steel plates kept at room temperature, but the researchers found no sign of the germs on pure copper after 90 minutes.

The new study, funded by a government grant to the Copper Development Association, is putting that finding to a real-world test involving three drug-resistant bugs - staph, enterococci and acinetobacter.

First, researchers are swabbing down a handful of ICU rooms at New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the Medical University of South Carolina and Charleston's Veterans Affairs Medical Center. They must learn where the germs lurk, explains Sloan-Kettering lead researcher Dr. Kent Sepkowitz.

Then the hospitals will substitute copper for some germ-prone surfaces in those rooms, and track if the change makes a difference.

Copper is expensive, but so are hospital-caused infections, Sepkowitz says.

"The question is will it save more money than it costs," he says."