CPR: Heart Attack Victims Do Better With No Mouth to Mouth

Mouth to mouth ventilation, long considered an essential other half (with chest compression) of CPR, does little to help people who have collapsed suddenly from a heart attack, according to a Japanese study of  4,068 heart attack victims. For the study, paramedics questioned bystanders about what happened in each case. They found that 72 percent of the patients received no resuscitation from
bystanders, 18 percent received conventional CPR and the rest received only
cardiac compression. The study measured how many people were alive at
one month with no mental impairment. Those who received only compressions fared twice as well as those who received both chest compressions and mouth to mouth.  The Los Angeles Times points out that the findings could have important implications in emergency medicine, because as many as three-quarters of bystanders who observe a heart attack in a
stranger decline to perform CPR, fearing infectious diseases.