Infections continue to run rampant.

• Position: Hospitalization

"Unnecessary Deaths" calls for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local public health officials to do more to stop hospital infections. The report, sponsored by the National Center for Policy Analysis and the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, says it is alerting the public to the grave financial and human consequences of poor infection control in American hospitals and maintains that these infections are almost all preventable through improvements in procedures and hygiene.

"One out of every 20 patients gets an infection in the hospital," asserts Betty McCaughey, chairman of RID and former Lt. Gov. of New York. "Infections that have been nearly eradicated in some countries--such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus--are raging through hospitals in the United States."

"Unnecessary Deaths" documents the success of hospitals that have reduced infections by 85% or more in pilot programs. "Betsy McCaughey's research dispels the myth that infection is the inevitable and unavoidable risk of being hospitalized," according to NCPA President John C. Goodman.

Hospital infections add $30,000,000,000 a year to the nation's hospital costs, the report declares...