ISU Bengal

Issue date: 1/23/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Nee Alistair D. ISU student, Jonathan Farrell, sports a sleeved t-shirt at Reed Gym, following the new policy.

Campus Recreation instituted a new policy requiring T-shirts to be worn by all persons exercising in Reed Gym on Nov. 8 of last year. According to official ISU statements concerning the policy, it is intended to decrease the risk of disease transmission due to multi-person use of exercise equipment. Several ISU students and one ISU professor have openly expressed concern about the policy and its actual motivation, causing it to come under review by the administration.

Dr. Nicole Prause, professor of psychology at ISU, first contacted Bill MacLachlan, associate director of campus recreation, concerning the policy shortly after it was instituted with concerns over the motivation and practicality of the policy.

"It wasn't entirely clear why they instituted the policy," Prause said. "As far as I can tell there's just no empirical basis for having that rule. There's no research that it increases that type of disease transmission."

The disease she is referring to is known as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA, commonly pronounced "mursa"). Staphylococcus aureus, or simply "staph", are common bacteria carried on the skin and in the nose of over a third of all persons, both healthy and not. According to the Center for Disease Control's website, MRSA is a type of staph infection resistant to the broad based antibiotics usually used to treat normal staph infections.

MRSA infections are usually found in hospitals and health care facilities such as nursing homes among the elderly or persons with already weakened immune systems. Infection of this bacteria found outside such settings among otherwise healthy people, such as in health clubs and gyms, is called Community-Associated MRSA (CA-MRSA) and usually manifests as skin infections, such as a boil or pimple, and are most commonly transmitted through skin to skin contact, especially open skin wounds or abrasions. Transmission in this type of setting is minimal, however, as a 2003 CDC study showed that roughly 12 percent of all MRSA infections are community-associated.

Prause said that there is no evidence to support the administrations contention that the T-shirt policy will reduce the risk of spreading MRSA. According to her, when she presented evidence in support of her contention via several emails following the policy's institution to MacLachlan and Doug Milder, director of campus recreation, she received little explanation as to the justification for instituting the policy.

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