New Avenue For MRSA 'Superbug': Pigs

smitty777 writes with news that researchers have discovered another way methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria are developing resistance to antibiotics. According to the study (abstract), the bacteria made the jump to pigs on livestock farms, developed greater resistance through the rounds of antibiotics commonly used to keep the pigs healthy, and then jumped back to humans. "The important development in the story of ST398 is its move back off the farm into humans, causing first asymptomatic carriage in that original family, and then illnesses in other Dutch residents, and then outbreaks in healthcare settings, and then movement across oceans, and then appearance in retail meat, and then infections in people who had no connection whatsoever to farming—all from an organism with a distinctive agricultural signature. That’s an important evolution, and an illustration once again that, as soon as resistance factors emerge, we really have no idea where they will spread. So it would be a good idea to take actions to keep them from emerging, or at the very least to implement surveillance that would allow us to identify them when they do."

Comments

Who was the idiot who just let this happen?

[HBI]

Seriously, why was it considered ok to dump antibiotics into animal feed? It seems like total idiocy from this angle, regardless of the short term benefits.

Re:Who was the idiot who just let this happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, why was it considered ok to dump antibiotics into animal feed? It seems like total idiocy from this angle, regardless of the short term benefits.

Because factory farms make more money that way, duh.

They don't give them antibiotics to treat disease. They give them antibiotics because they fatten up faster, I guess cause their immune systems atrophy so they can put more metabolic energy into growth.

But no really, if factory farms didn't save that penny or two per hog we'd ALL be in DEEP TROUBLE then.

Re:Who was the idiot who just let this happen?

[Rogerborg]

Next quarter's profit uber alles.

That's it. That's all there is to it.

Re:Who was the idiot who just let this happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems like total idiocy from this angle, regardless of the short term benefits.

It's a free market. The farmer using antibiotics to increase growth isn't the one paying the costs of those benefits. He's be a idiot not to maximize his profits. Farming is very competitive (low margins), so if you make enough mistakes you'll go bankrupt very quickly.

Re:Who was the idiot who just let this happen?

[slacker22]

This is especially true in countries where farms haven't evolved into 'super-farms'. You have the likes of dairy-farmers who are heavily exposed to the volatility which comes part-and-parcel with specialization (i.e. lack of diversification). For a small family farmer, there is limited benefit to thinking long-term. Their livelihood is tied up with next quarter's profit and they don't have the sophistication/time to be hedging exposure on futures exchanges.

Re:Who was the idiot who just let this happen?

[SydShamino]

Libertarianism cannot cope with tragedy of the commons. You know when libertarians say that positive rights are not guaranteed human rights, because they force someone else into slavery? It gets mentioned on Slashdot pretty commonly.

Your right to live in a world where antibiotics work obliges pig farmers to lower their efficiency and lose money, because it is more cost effective to farm with antibiotics. Likewise, your right to live in a world with breathable air and survivable temperatures and arable land obliges coal factories and car manufacturers to capture their exhausts, including carbon. Libertarians would have to classify these rights as positive rights because they oblige others to take action.

Some libertarians will say that the court system can handle this, because you can sue those that cause you demonstrable harm. But in a case like this, exactly how much money do you think each person who dies from MRSA can extract from a Dutch farm? And isn't it better to live in a world without MRSA and more government regulation than a world with MRSA and more lawsuits?

Anyway, if the right to live in a world free of man-made and man-contributed diseases, where the temperature supports life and there is potable water to drink, is a positive right, then why the fuck do we bother with negative rights like speech and assembly at all? They are sort of meaningless when we're all dead. We all should have standing to take action when the commons could be violated, and the way we do that is through government regulation.

Sorry for a rant on the pointlessness of negative rights without positive rights, but I think that's why it was considered ok to dump antibiotics into animal feed.

Re:thanks meat eaters!

[TheReaperD]

We can be meat eaters and still be alarmed about the health and quality of the food supply. Being a vegetarian/vegan has nothing to do with it. There are serious concerns about our grain, vegetable and fruit supplies as well between pesticides, GMOs and processed foods. Quit sticking your nose to the sky and actually look at the whole problem.

Re:thanks meat eaters!

[Anonymous Coward]

Stick your finger in the mouth and feel the meat ripping teeth.

Re:thanks meat eaters!

[vux984]

. I lead a very active lifestyle -- I bike to work, scuba dive, teach spin classes, and work out regularly. (I'm known as one of the tougher spin instructors.) I go to the doctor about once a year to get a checkup.

And this is why you are healthy.

I eat a vegan diet

Not this.

Granted your diet likely involves not loading up on potato chips, and twinkies every day... so a "healty diet" is important. But it doesn't need to be "vegan" to be "healthy".