Some folks aren't even sure which medications are antibiotics. "People think Robitussin or Benadryl, even Sudafed, are antibiotics. They're not. They can be taken without worrying about creating antibiotic resistance."

Some people also think resistance is a matter of their own bodies becoming immune to the effects of the drugs because of the way they've used antibiotics, so if they've been careful, they're home free. It's the bacteria that change and then pass to someone else. That means someone who has never misused or perhaps never even used antibiotics can have an antibiotic-resistant illness.

"People talk about the tragedy of the common when it comes to antibiotics," he said. "It's a little like pollution. It makes it worse for everyone in the community. Each person in the community feeds off the grass in the commons until no one can feed off it. You think there's no harm done, but slowly but surely it contributes to the demise of effectiveness for everyone."

Health experts are trying different ways to make the message compelling to the public. They've even come up with a card game called "Germinator" that's given to grade schools in rural communities. There's a self-care guide that's on a refrigerator magnet with a flip-top magnet to help people take care of respiratory infections. At health fairs they have an "antibiotic wheel." The individual spins the wheel and answers a question to get a small prize.

Dr. Tamara Lewis, medical director of Community and Preventive Health for Intermountain Health Care, said IHC hospitals fight resistance in part with a "computerized logic" program that helps physicians decide what the best treatment would be, based on diagnosis or symptoms.

The Utah Department of Health spearheaded a public-awareness campaign with the message "the right drug for the right bug."

The public seems to be getting the message. "We hear from physicians that patients are less concerned when we tell them to wait" instead of prescribing an antibiotic right away, Lewis said.

In the past, doctors sometimes felt pressured by patients to "prescribe something," and for a long time prescribing an antibiotic seemed like a pretty harmless solution. Now antibiotic resistance has made it clear that's a potentially dangerous thing to do, not because it will harm that patient but because it contributes to the creation of bacteria that are very hard to kill for everyone.

Virtually every antibiotic, except perhaps the very newest ones, have seen pockets of resistance develop. And they will. It's serious business, Luedtke said.

There are several take-away messages from a discussion of antibiotic resistance. First, antibiotics must be used precisely as prescribed. Second — and the good news — is that most staph skin infections can be treated without antibiotics by draining the sore.

The best way to prevent MRSA is also the best way to prevent spreading most infectious illnesses: Practice good hygiene. Wash your hands thoroughly and often with soap and water. Keep cuts and scrapes clean and cover them with a bandage until they're healed. And don't touch other people's wounds or material contaminated from wounds.

The CDC is working in four states with a project to "define the spectrum of disease, determine populations affected" and develop studies to define who is at risk.

Harper's story had a happy ending. Doctors cleaned the wound thoroughly, cutting away the infection and packing his arm with gauze. Daily, he pulls out a section of that gauze and clips it off to make room for new, healthy tissue. He's feeling good now.

But it was frightening, he said. And incredibly painful. And he knows it could happen again.

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E-mail: lois@desnews.com