Risky business: failure to prevent and failure to communicate.

Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), important threats to patient safety, are considered differently from other adverse events. Gardam and his colleagues discuss several reasons for this and outline approaches that may bring about changes in attitudes and enhance HAI prevention. We comment on the potential preventability of HAIs, the need for improved communication strategies and the different vision of the role of infection control personnel suggested by Gardam et al.

Acute myelogenous leukemia and glycogen storage disease 1b.

Glycogen storage disease 1b (GSD 1b) is caused by a deficiency of glucose-6-phosphate translocase and the intracellular accumulation of glycogen. The disease presents with failure to thrive, hepatomegaly, hypoglycemia, lactic acidosis, as well as neutropenia causing increased susceptibility to pyogenic infections. We present a case of a young woman with GSD 1b who developed acute myelogenous leukemia while on long-term granulocyte colony-stimulating factor therapy.