Routine infections now have power to kill

It would appear that your columnist, Colette Browne, does not read the paper that pays her. If she had read the letter from Dr Clair, published on Tuesday, it is unlikely she would have written the column published on Wednesday.

As Dr Clair has made clear — and as I have been advised by a number of people in the medical profession — Mrs Halappanavar tragically died from an antibiotic-resistant strain of e.coli. Once her own body’s immune system capitulated to the infection and caused septicaemia, there was nothing that could be done to save her. Not an abortion, not removal of the locus of the infection (her bloodstream), nothing.

The problem is common and, hitherto, routine infections that have now acquired the power to kill.