[Noah930]

As far as I know, alcohol does pretty well in killing all sorts of bacteria, MRSA included. There are many alcohol-based surgical hand scrubs and patient preparation solutions. However, the problems with alcohol: it dries the skin (particularly if you're using it repetitively--this part's fact), and there's not much money to be made in it (so soap/pharmaceutical companies aren't that enthusiastic about making a bazillion products with it--this part's my opinion). But alcohol's a pretty good cleansing agent.

edit: Like Tobra points out, it's impossible to completely sterilize your skin--but with proper hygeine and technique, you'll reduce the bacterial load to as low as possible, and let the body's immune system take care of the rest.

For people like Z-man, who have to do multiple fingersticks on a daily basis and worry about that as a portal of entry (as well as the diminished immunological status from the underlying diabetes), that's a good reason for using good sterile technique when you're doing said fingersticks, and good hygeine in general to keep your hands clean.

MRSA is probably all over the place, by now. I wouldn't be surprised if it was colonized on your, and my, and everyone else's skin. But there's a difference between colonization (where the bacteria grows/sits benignly) and infection (where the bacteria is causing a problem). You still have your natural immune system to fight off MRSA, as well as all your body's other barriers to infection (such as your skin, the lining of your gut, etc.). So just because you're colonized with MRSA doesn't mean you're necessarily infected with it, or going to be infected with it.

Rammstein brings up a good point. If a patient may potentially have an infectious problem, we live in a society where it's far easier to overprescribe antibiotics and at least look like we're trying to do everything we can to take care of a potentially infectious problem. You (as a patient or family member or parent) most likely would be a lot less pissed if a doc apparently tried all that was available and needlessly overtreated a condition, than if you felt that you were blown off by the doc and NOT given an antibiotic when that's possibly what might have solved the problem. Don't know if that last sentence makes sense. But we seem to live in a society where it's more acceptable to overtreat a condition, than it is to potentially undertreat it (even if the odds are in that 5% category) and possibly result in a complication that could have been prevented had we gone in with guns ablazin' from the get-go. We forget (both docs and patients) that there is actually a big-picture negative to overtreating.