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Despite our near-constant exposure to rapidly growing nontuberculous mycobacteria (RGM), which are common colonizers of water supply systems, these organisms seldom make us sick. Or perhaps they do so more often than we recognize.
Spurred by two local cases of RGM leg furunculosis apparently acquired in nail salons, North Carolina researchers combed public health records of two counties for additional cases during a 4-year period; they found 40 confirmed or probable cases in women and teenage girls, whose single or multiple leg lesions were caused most often by organisms in the Mycobacterium chelonae/abscessus group. The researchers visited some of the implicated nail salons, where they noted debris or visible biofilms in the footbaths more …