Another example of the media and their poor reporting. Staphylococcus aures is a bacteria and not a virus. It would be nice if the media actually ran their stories by anyone with a little knowledge before writing them. Even a undergraduate from a basic microbiology class would know that. Do the scientific community a break and check the facts.

What an absolute moron!! Cannot believe what a stupid thing this was for him to do. But what do you expect from a kid named “Zeke” who was trying to pierce his own lip? Idiot.

That’s too bad…as teenagers we all do stupid things but it’s unforntunate when someone learns the hard way, especially when it has negative impacts on his health. I feel bad for the kid.

How do they know he got the MRSA from the lip piercing? He was sick with viral infection before, he could have had staph infection at this time.

This is why I won’t let my daughter get herself pierced as long as she is under my protection. Even though the chances of something like this happening to her, any chance is too much! I love her & it’s my responsibility to play the heavy & protect her.

More parents should take their responsibilities to heart & protect their kids against themselves if necessary!

This is why I won’t let my daughter get herself pierced as long as she is under my protection. Even though the chances of something like this happening to her, any chance is too much! I love her & it’s my responsibility to play the heavy & protect her.

More parents should take their responsibilities to heart & protect their kids against themselves if necessary!

This is what we get for not educating our children better. How is a 15-year-old to know this could cause a life threatening infection when we barely teach them about the truth behind STD’s. This is why kids do stupid things. Because they don’t know. Health education should be taught well before teenage years. Instead it doesn’t start until the 8th and sometimes 9th grade. By that time who knows what kind of crazy things they’ll do. All it takes is a battle against ignorance to put a stop to needless casualties.

So we choose a moral or use common sense? Lesson A-don’t leave your teen at home alone when he’s sick for he might do something harmful OR Lesson B-don’t allow body piercing at home or by professionals, otherwise if it’s disallowed he may try to do it at home alone when it’s not safe ORLesson C Listen to reason- the dentist and the MD’s do not advise body piercing and though it’s been done in uncivilized nations for centuries, it’s not safe in developed countries now that MRSA is around. Lesson D- don’t associate with people who support body piercing because they’re not taking their health, which is a gift, very seriously and it is a sign of poor hygiene.

We’re so sorry for this tragedy which the young man and probably others have brought upon themselves unintentionally. Isn’t there something more to life than looking stupid? Really, what’s the benefit of looking that way when it’s an abuse of one’s health. Do young people really care about themselves anymore? The std rate is out of control. DOn’t we care about our family members, our future spouse and future children.

Poor kid . What a hard way to have to learn a lesson . I hope he is feeling better soon and suffers no long term effects from his mistake .

One word describes this kid…. IDIOT.

This is one more example of why national health care is a bad idea — it interferes with the process of natural selection. (That’s where the chronically stupid manage to eliminate themselves from the human gene pool before they have the misfortune to breed.)

@Bose

He was diagnosed with a viral infection, then with MRSA. The article makes no mention of MRSA being a virus.

@Darwin
I didn’t realize you got to choose your name.

Hey Zeke when you get home why not try self circumcision you dimwit!!!

I pierced my own ears as a young girl. Many of my peers did the same. But times have changed. Now we are like some third world country. Lip piercing? Ridiculous. I’m waiting to see when some fool sticks a bone through his nose. This poor child. He is a product of a warped media/society which tells young children that lip piercing is main stream.

It really upsets me that people can be sooo insensitive. This kid did what many and any child is capable of doing. I teach this age child and they want to be cool, and have love and acceptance. Their peers are important to them and they are affected by what they see and what goes on around them. They get plenty of education about what can happen to them from piercings, SDTD’s alcohol, etc. They still don’t think it can happen to them. I’m proud of the mother that says she will protect her child. That is a good start but there is no guarnatee that it will keep her protected. It is a great start however, and what all parents shoud do. She is saying I love you, therefore you can’t. And parents, while you are at it, teach them to be kind to one another. Obviously, some of the idot callers out there haven’t learned that, so it may be hard for them to teach their children. To the parents of this young man that made a poor decision I pray that he doesn’t have any lifelong affects from this tragedy and that he uses his mistake to help others.

This kid is a total loser. He looks like such a wanker laying there. The fact that he was trying to pierce his lip indicates that he is pretty stupid and in need of more attention. He certainly got it. I want to know who is paying for all of his medical bills. His parents? I doubt it. The kid just needs to die. He is going to be so jacked up, he will be a tax burden for the rest of us for the rest of his life. Another idiot is commenter Bose. The article never claims MRSA is a virus. It says he was diagnosed with a viral infection and then a week later was found to have the MRSA after going to the children’s hospital. What I want to know also is what is Obama going to do to save this kid? He needs to go see this boy wanker and save him. Obama is so awesome. I bet he could just go there and the MRSA would get scared by the hip, tough black Obama and leave the hospital. Obama can save us all, just get him in office and we are all saved.

He should go to or watch the Healing Revival in Lakeland, Florida on the internet at 7PM everynight. People are receiving healing and miracles around the world. http://www.ignitedchurch.com/

The other comments on here are ridiculous. Basically every comment is saying how stupid this kid is for self piercing. Do you not realize that there are adults out there piercing kids with unsterile needles? Yes, this is happening at local malls everywhere. Those guns that people use to pierce children’s ears cannot be autoclaved, therefore they are not sterile, so this could be transmitted just as easily this way. I love how ignorant certain adults can be. Learn your facts.

MRSA is becoming more common and I believe it is not just from people piercing themselves with contaminated needles!

Anyone can get staph let alone MRSA.

My nephew who just turned 5 had staph when he was 2 and nearly died from it. He was at a Tennessee’s top Children’s Hospital when diagnosed. The doctors had never seen a case as bad as his.

The staff told us he could have gotten it from a simple paper cut.

So give this teen a break. Yes, it’s a tough lesson learned and from what the article says he may have chronic issues related to what has happened.

We have all done things that resulted in consequences, some longer than others!

Idiotic report. I’m a dentist and the warning should be to not put extra holes in one body in unclean places. Kids are so stupid that they reflect the “common culture” that makes it OK for people to be noticed by markings and metal instead of education and achievment.

Dr. Jon Aronson
Nellysford, Virginia

“This is one more example of why national health care is a bad idea — it interferes with the process of natural selection. (That’s where the chronically stupid manage to eliminate themselves from the human gene pool before they have the misfortune to breed.)” — Vtercell

Yea, and letting people die who fall down the steps would “breed out” the clumsy among us, while letting people die who have been hit by drunk drivers would “breed out” those who don’t pay enough attention…

Your statement alone is proof enough that evolution has already stagnated among us long-legged ground-monkeys.

As alot of people are taking this article and bashing body piercing in general, let me enlighten ya’ll on a few things. My husband had 13 body piercings growing up. 0 infections. I myself have had 8 with 0 infections. If you have a professional do it, there is little to know risks because you are briefed on how to take care of the peircing during the healing process. But if you are dumb enough to try it at home, maybe do a little research to make sure you are not endangering yourselves. And for all those that are blaming lack of education in schools for this, bear in mind that most professional peircing parlors will not peirce a minor without parental consent so those of you with idiot children who did their piercings at home, then I blame poor parenting on that.

And Broken, I don’t think you read the article to clearly, because yes the article did make reference to MRSA as a virus. At least here in the blog section it did. If you scroll to the article right before the comments start, this is what you will see: “Zeke Wheeler of Blue Springs is recovering at Children’s Mercy Hospital after several surgeries on his knees and hips to remove the drug-resistant infection called Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus virus.”

@ Broken

For the record, the intial article before my post said it was a virus. Secondly, read the story here above the comments and not the one on the Foxnews frontpage which says:
“Zeke Wheeler of Blue Springs is recovering at Children’s Mercy Hospital after several surgeries on his knees and hips to remove the drug-resistant infection called Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus virus.”

@Ashley
Thanks for reading the article clearly and backing up my comment

that’s really a sad thing to hear about. I am 14 years old and reading some of these other people’s comments, it’s like yeah, he should have known better and maybe he did, but he thought you know what this can’t happen to me, what are the chances? I myself, have a couple facial piercings, one of which i did myself but had a sterilized needle. What goes through their mind is, “oh, my parents would never let me get a facial piercing, nor buy the sterilized tools to do so” and they resort into getting their hands on whatever needed to pierce themselves. the chances may be very low into getting staph, but you never know what microscopic bacteria is around you because you can’t see it! I hope all is well with Zeke.