At $83 for a 30 gm tube ($34 if ordering from Canada), it's a little pricey to be comparing to Neosporin. If you have a problem with M.R.S.A. you're a little beyond a home FAK. Neosporin is fine for cuts and scrapes.

Community-acquired MRSA is a difficult thing to estimate but according to one study cited by the CDC, they estimated that 12% of MRSA cases were acquired outside of any healthcare setting. But the prevalence of MRSA in the wild probably varies dramatically from place to place.

Many commercial products have a vast advertisement spend and give plenty of free samples to doctors.

Why are we talking about how good an ointment tastes?
Unless we are following up with an application of dog spit.

ON the MRSA question, my doctor and I talked about infections in the back woods, use of antibiotics, etc. He said any kind of dangerous infection that I would get out in the woods would probably be carried out there on my skin. We've got lots of creepy-crawlies on our skin every day. Of course that is what our immune systems are for to combat that.

Arney,

Sorry, to clarify:
1.washing wound with soap and water then using nothing

versus

2. washing with soap and water then using antibiotic ointment

Specificaly, treating a wound while away from civilization, say on a week-long backpacking trip where a quick trip to the doctor is very difficult. I want to prevent a would from becoming infected.

I understand the risk of internet-based information, that's why I was hoping for some actual reports. I'm a scientist, I used to muddling through those things.

-Blast

Hmmm, I just realized...rly45acp, by "wild" did you mean out in the bush? I was thinking of normal, everyday life, but outside of healthcare settings, which is rather different than when you're hiking/backpacking far from civillization.

I realized the distinction after reading Weldon's comment about how we take bacteria with us into the woods. That's very true. If we develop a MRSA infection in the woods, I think odds are good that it's from bacteria that we carried with us from home, not something from the wild. I'm not sure if anyone has tried to quantify that risk, though.

Here's just one study based on real wounds:

Prospective evaluation of topical antibiotics for preventing infections in uncomplicated soft-tissue wounds repaired in the ED.
Acad Emerg Med. 1995 Jan;2(1):4-10.

This comparison study showed that use of a number of different antibacterial ointments resulted in fewer infections later on compared to those using petroleum jelly as a control (to rule out the effect of the "keeping the wound moist and protected" idea). Triple antibiotic ointment (like Neosporin) was among the best of the antibacterial compounds tested.

This study:

Contemporary antimicrobial activity of triple antibiotic ointment: a multiphased study of recent clinical isolates in the United States and Australia.
Diagn Microbiol Infect Dis. 2006 Jan;54(1):63-71.

...made me feel better about triple antibiotic ointment. It showed that Neosporin worked against even MRSA, even those samples that were resistant to Mupirocin, even though these antibiotic compounds have been in widespread use for decades.

Anyway, FWIW.

Arney,

Thanks! Thanks to everyone else, too. I've been aware of the honey treatment for many years, but Neosporin comes in much more convienent packaging.

One study isn't much to go on, though. Anyone know of a group of EMO kids we can send out into the woods...

-Blast

No, wild as in out in the bush. You're correct that normal everyday life is more wild than the wilderness, but most folks I meet think they are in "the wild" if they get twenty feet from pavement in a national park.

I live in a rural area with neighbors who come from big cities. Of course, I came from a big, high crime city too, but I was always an outdoorsman. One of these neighbors is afraid of my two Toulouse geese and another wants me to get rid of our last two remaining ducks and the two geese (which they wanted in the first place and then we took over caring for them when the neighbors realized it involved a little (very little) effort.) because they cause the Canadian geese to flock to our pond--their words, not mine. The fact that the Canadian geese come here every year to mate and raise their offspring, and we see the same pairs every year (different identifying marks on the faces), and that these geese were here for years before the domestic geese arrived escapes them! They don't want any raccoons, ducks or geese, skunks, coyotes, fox, etc., around because they defecate in their yard and the grandkids may step in it (forget about the other neighbors Labrador that drops really serious stuff!). Gee, I grew up stepping in that stuff and it included it from cows too :-), but somehow I made it all this way with no ill effects! They want to live in a rural environment sterile of any animals other than deer in the distant -- and I mean distant. If they get too close, they may eat the flowers.. The one neighbor asked me to kill the wild geese to get rid of them. I told him if he wanted them dead, he should kill them, as I enjoyed watching them. He said, and this is a quote, "I'm not a gun person and I don't like to kill things." I answer, "So what am I, the neighborhood hit man because I'm a hunter? If you want them dead, you kill them." Another neighbor put a swinging door in her garage so her cats could go out during the day. She then had fits when opossum and raccoons got in her garage and made a mess of it. She had a snake get in their too and nearly passed out. I looked at her with one eyebrow raised and asked her if she'd considered removing the door since these animals were always about at night and were very opportunistic. She subsequently had the little door blocked.

This is a bit off topic, but I think it explains why I used the term "wild" to mean wilderness.