MRSA (pronounced "murr - sa") is an acronym for "Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus." While Staphylococcus aureus is a common and relatively harmless inhabitant in the nasal passages of 25-30% of people, the MRSA form of staphylococcus is not so benign and once entrenched it does not go away. MRSA is a monster bacteria created by the medical use of man-made antibiotics and antibacterial agents employed principally in hospitals. It was first detected in the 1960s, only a few years after a new semi-synthetic form of penicillin (Methicillin) was introduced.
Hospitals are where this germ originated and is still where it is principally found. However, since 1982 MRSA has been found outside of hospitals, first detected among drug users in Detroit. Since then it has worked its way into other parts of the community, including playgrounds and gymnasiums. Thus, we not only have HA-MRSA or "Hospital Acquired MRSA" but also CA-MRSA or "Community Acquired MRSA."
The portion of staphylococcal infections in the U.S. due to MRSA has risen steadily at an ever-increasing rate from 2% in 1974 to 63% in 2004. Once MRSA has been acquired, it is usually remains with the infected individual for life and can be fatal. Medical science has no effective treatment for MRSA infections.
A Relative Contracts MRSA
As a case in point, I have a relative, a retired career military man, who accompanied his wife to a hospital for some routine tests for her (not him). He had a small open scratch on his leg. During his visit, he acquired HA-MRSA through that small scratch. His leg swelled up and became inflamed. To date, no treatment has worked in stopping the spread of the bacteria in his body. It has now infected his entire leg and has worked up into his groin. He has been hospitalized more than once for treatments, all of which have been ineffective. It has been five years since his fateful visit to the hospital with his wife and he still carries the infection, which is slowly spreading.
I mentioned the possibility of essential oils to him, but he is a relative of mine and, as many of you have experienced, we have no credibility with our relatives. (Mark 6:4) He is also a devout believer in allopathic medicine. Having a Cadillac insurance program from being a veteran, he is content to keep receiving free medical treatment, even though it is not working. Unless he eventually resorts to a non-allopathic solution, he will most likely suffer from this infection for the rest of his life and, perhaps, even succumb to it.
Will Medical Science Find a Solution to MRSA?
Since the pharmaceutical approach to resistant strains of bacteria is to develop stronger and stronger antibiotics, there a pharmaceutical solution is not likely to ever be found because any antibiotic stronger than Methicillin would be more likely to kill the patient than the bacteria. Vancomycin is another antibiotic nearly equal in potency to Methicillin, but it, like Methicillin, can also be lethal to the patient and has not been found effective against MRSA.
Since it was the plethora of man-made antibiotics and antibacterial agents employed since the 1950's that were the creators of MRSA and other resistant strains of bacteria in the first place, it is not likely that any medicine synthesized in a laboratory will ever be a solution. In fact, additional more powerful man-made drugs would most likely result in giving birth to even more virulent microorganisms. MRSA is a Frankenstein of the Medical System's own creation. The solution to MRSA must come from outside the medical paradigm.
Are Essential Oils Effective Against MRSA?
Since Modern Medicine has no cure for MRSA and is, in fact, the cause of MRSA, the most likely means to combat MRSA is essential oils, which are among the most versatile and effective antimicrobial agents known. Not only do essential oils have powerful antibacterial properties without side effects, they are also incapable of producing resistant strains of bacteria as synthetic pharmaceuticals do.
There are two reasons essential oils do not and cannot create resistant strains of bacteria:
(1) Essential oils are extremely complex, comprised of hundreds of compounds, while laboratory-produced medicines are simple, usually consisting of only one or two active ingredients. Thus, bacteria have less difficulty in breaking the codes of a man-made medicine than in attempting to form a resistance to a natural medicine like an essential oil.
(2) Furthermore, essential oils are never twice the same while every batch of a pharmaceutical drug is always the same, reproduced with laboratory exactness. Hence, with repeated exposure to the same identical drug, bacteria eventually figure out its toxic properties and develope resistance. However, since essential oils are never identical from year to year, even if bacteria did figure out an oil's effective components in a given year, they would have to start all over with the next crop.
The reason essential oils are not exactly duplicatible is because they are products of the vagaries of nature. The essential oils of a plant vary to adjust to their environment, just as human blood adjusts from morning to evening, from season to season, and from climate to climate. A plant's oils are actually different from morning to night each day and from week to week throughout the growing season. Furthermore, the growing environment for a plant is never the same year to year. Some years are warmer than others, some cooler, some with more rain, some less, and if you compare the same species grown in different latitudes, altitudes, climates, and soils, you get even greater variations.
A basil plant will always produce a basil oil with the same suite of compounds, but from year to year and place to place, the relative proportions of the hundreds of compounds comprising basil oil will be different. Essential oils are like fine wines. Since no two years are the same, neither are two year's wines the same even from the same vinyard. That is why vintners put dates on their bottles, since each year's wine will a little different in taste, color, and fragrance.
Therefore bacteria will never figure out nor become resistant to an essential oil because they are too complex and because they are always changing. Man-made medicines are temporary, but God's medicines are forever. Hospitals used to use the Oil of Onycha (Styrax benzoin) dissolved in alcohol (called Tincture of Benzoin) as their most effective antiseptic and antibacterial agent to cleanse and sanitize their wards.
If hospitals and medical doctors would have continued to use natural agents like Onycha, we would not have resistant strains of bacteria, such as MRSA, to threaten us today.
