American troops wounded in Iraq and brought back to the United States have unexpectedly high rates of infection with a drug-resistant type of bacteria. Hospitals like Walter Reed now see 6 to 12 infected soldiers a month; before 2003 they had no more than one a month. No American soldiers from the Iraq war have died from the bacteria, but five very ill patients in the same hospitals as wounded soldiers became infected in the hospital and subsequently died. It is not known whether the bacteria or the patients’ underlying illnesses caused their deaths.

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