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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."
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.
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.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
Authoritarian Left : Antibiotics in animal feed increase yields thus benefiting the proletariat.
Authoritarian Right : Antibiotics in animal feed increase yields thus benefiting the shareholders.
Libertarian Left : If the superbug kills you then you can sue the farmer in court.
Libertarian Right : If the superbug kills you then you can sue the pathogen in court.
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.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
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.
One reason I became a vegetarian was because I learned about all the antibiotics in Pork/Beef/Poultry. I suffered severe Streptococcus infections in the respiratory system. When learning I was effectively on Antibotics, constantly, due to my diet, thus prescription antibiotics were having no observable effect, I realized I was fighting Streptococcus which was already resistant, thus I was getting these painful and long duration infections.
Understand this: Antibiotics are targeted toxins, most likely to have a greater effect upon certain organisims, while there would be some collateral effect upon the host, including degradation of the immune system.
After about 2 years without antibiotic-laden foods I found I stave off these infections more effectively and when I have them the duration is significantly decreased.
Keeping like livestock (or plants) in a dense concentration provides an ideal breeding ground for organisms to prey upon them, further, to mutate as the turnover can be far more rapid than in the wild. Add to that antibiotics and you have the ideal incubator for super-bugs. Victims of our own way of production. Won't get better with bigger factory farms, either, it's a cycle which builds upon itself.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It's considered ok because there isn't any real scientific evidence there is an issue. And it's been studied since at least 1990.
Do you want to cite some of those studies to back up your claim? A quick Pubmed search turns up a whole lot of papers indicating that the use of antibiotics in animal feed is a major contributor the rise of resistant strains.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.