Farm Workers Carry Drug-Resistant Staph Despite Partial FDA Antibiotics Ban

An anonymous reader writes "New research out of the University of North Carolina now shows factory farm workers actually carry drug-resistant staph. Europe has long ago banned the use of antibiotics in livestock, but the FDA remains behind the curve with a partial ban. Thanks to large industrial farming operations, we all remain continuously at risk as our last line of antibiotics is wasted on animals."

Comments

PIck Your Hospital?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

So, if you don't want to get MRSA while in the hospital, you should pick one that does not have many farm hands as patients?

Re:PIck Your Hospital?

[Mashiki]

Nope. I live in a rural area(city of ~30k rural pop ~120k), and my local hospital has had zero issues or outbreaks of MRSA. Though the nearby cities of London and Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge here in Ontario, have all had problems of MRSA. If you don't want to get it, you need to go to a hospital that has good microbiological controls in place.

This is kind of fun

[ZarathustraDK]

Y'know, evolution being the path by which this happened, and americans being unable to blame it because that would aknowledge its existence.

I guess it will get blamed on socialism, Obama, terrorists er something.

Re:This is kind of fun

[Black Parrot]

Y'know, evolution being the path by which this happened, and americans being unable to blame it because that would aknowledge its existence

I suspect the dominant social factor is the fact that the USA lacks the will (or spine) to impose badly needed regulations if they would cut into someone's profits. Especially if that 'someone' is a whole industry.

Re:This is kind of fun

[Black Parrot]

[Edit to add:]

Letting people die causes less outrage.

Re:This is kind of fun

[interkin3tic]

Creationists maintain there is a difference between bacteria, fruit flies, and mice undergoing observable evolution and humans evolving. They call one "microevolution" and the other "macroevolution."

It's impossible to deny that evolution happens. You can watch it happen, bacteria on antibiotic plates. It is possible to claim that has nothing to do with how humans came to be, all it requires is extreme stupidity and insistence that a holy book is the best way to understand facts.

If you're going to date a farmer...

[Burz]

make sure s/he is organically certified. :)

Re:"behind the curve"

[Pseudonym Authority]

You have no understanding on bacteria, vaccination, or statistics. Please do not voice your uninformed opinion ever again.

That said, let me explain it to you: bacteria wants to live. Bacteria will evolve to survive in places where it is not welcome. The bacteria are simple organisms, and don't like to waste space in their DNA on stupid shit just for fun. The presence of vaccines in places that they want to live is usually a problem, but they adapt to it. If the vaccines were not there, there would be no evolutionary pressure to evade the vaccines. Understand? Or do I need to break out the image macros, as stupid memes like `curolation =! causashon' is probably a better learning tool for you.

And this is kind of sad

[c0lo]

Sad, because the EU may had imposed the ban for nothing: unless they also impose a quarantine against anything/anyone coming from outside, the drug-resistant staph will get into EU (directly from US or via other routes).

One wonders: would this staph strain they bred qualify to WMD?

Re: And this is kind of sad

[ericloewe]

You seem to be missing the point. Randomly giving animals (or people, but that's harder to control) antibiotics without them needed said antibiotics will eventually create antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Your point is a typical "We can't fix everything, so let's fix nothing!" attitude I've seen applied way too often on this website.

Also, these antibiotics aren't banned. Uncontrolled administration of any antibiotic for non-medical reasons is. What would you suggest we do? Stop using antibiotics and hope not to die because of something that could've been easily treated with antibiotics but wasn't due to a fear that some bacteria will develop a resistance against it?

It's not a matter of eliminating the problem, it's a matter of controlling it, limiting it to situations where the probabiility of some mutant strain appearing is acceptable compared to death.

Re: And this is kind of sad

[crmarvin42]

Who says we are applying them randomly to livestock? Antibiotics cost money and animal producers have to deal with a boom bust cycle of profitabilitlity that means unnecessary expenses must be cut whenever possible. They are VERY deliberate in their decisions regarding any feed ingredient becuase feed accounts for 60 to 80% of the cost of bringing their prouduct to market. A 5% savings in total feed costs could spell the difference between losing money and making money.

For an MD, however, the incentives are all stacked in favor of reckless use. Malpractice insurance forces MD's to side on the side of overprescription becuase they don't want to be sued for witholding antibiotics that turn out to have been necessary. Patients come in expecting to be prescribed something, and if they aren't they are more than willing to make another appointment with a doctor who will prescribe them what they want. Currently all of the negatives of antibiotic resistance development can be blamed on Agriculture (even in the EU which is rediculous considering the bans), so why risk malpractice or disgruntled patients to prevent a negative outcome no one will blame you for anyway?

I believe that use in animals does contribute. I stated as such in my post. However, it is my opinion that the relative impact of animal vs. human prescribing on the resistance problem are orders of magnitude different and banning in livestock will only make marginal improvements at best. That may be good for human medicine, but I believe that a cost-benefit analysis will show that the benefit to human medicine will be far outstriped by the cost to human food security from both a supply and sanitation perspective. I base this opinion not on my own vested interest (I'm responsible for supporting a sales force that sells antibiotic alternatives to livestock producers, so ban is good for me personally), but on attempts I've seen to model antibiotic resistance development.

Also, at the risk of sounding callous we need to keep in mind that most resistant infections are not fatal. No one said that these farmers with MRSA were dying. Only that they had MRSA present. As long as their immune system is not dramatically compromized they are capable of fighting off MRSA, becuase MRSA is not immune to antibodies, macrophages, or any other part of the acue phase response. They are only resistant to a single supportive therapy that most people don't actually need. That doesn't reduce the importance in the immunocompromized (Very young, elderly, those with other immune compromizing conditions, etc.). But it's not like MRSA is Ebola.

MRSA isn't even as bad as Salmonella, which can actually make an otherwise healthy person sick, is endogenous to poultry, and can be controlled via antibiotics in poultry feed. By banning sub-theraputic doses of antibiotics in poultry you increase the risk of food-borne salmonella infections which can kill the perfectly healthy among us... Unlike MRSA! This is why the decision to ban should have been based on a holistic cost-benefit analysis instead of the regressive "Precautionary Principle" which is motivated more by irrational fear than evidence.

Re: And this is kind of sad

[MobyDisk]

Who says we are applying them randomly to livestock?

Dr. Glen Morris
PBS
FDA
Union of Concerned Scientists
CDC
I got all that from the first few hits on a Google search for "Antibiotics livestock"

Here are a few quotes from some of the articles:

Yet the United States continues to use at least 70 percent of its antibiotics on livestock, to shave pennies per pound from the price of pork chops or chicken

Meat producers have fed growth-promoting antibiotics to food animals for years.

Millions of pounds of antibiotics are routinely administered at low doses to large numbers of animals living in crowded conditions, not because they are sick, but to speed their growth and prevent possible infections

Your economic argument explains why they are doing it. It makes them money because the animals are fatter.

Re: And this is kind of sad

[crmarvin42]

Yes, because a google search is the equivalent of a critical review, and not a popularity contest subject to clever tricks such as search engine optimizat at all.

I don't know where this Dr. Morris works within the FDA, but it is not within the center for veterinary medicine (CVM). The group responsible for regulating drugs in animal feed. The officials within CVM are prohibited by law from revoking the approval of a product without sufficient evidence of danger. Studies like the one above don't prove anything, they are all just correllation. And as we all know on /., Correlation is not proof of Causation!

I have several ideas for trial designs that might show stronger support, one way or the other, but instead of coming up with better designs they keep just repeating the same designs.

Idea #1: Find two demographically similar communities (preferably both having similar farm populations and production levels), one with a hospital and the other without and look at community MRSA rates. If I'm right, the town with the hospital will have much higher MRSA levels within the community if not, there will be no difference.

Idea #2: Similar approach, but without hospitals and with farms under opposing antibiotic use rules. In the US there are several university farms that have gone without antibiotics for decades, or a US community could be comparied to an EU community. If I'm wrong, then there would be higher MRSA rates in the community with higher drug use on swine farms. If I'm right there will be no difference.

I'm willing to conced the point if someone will show me something more rigorous than "We tested a bunch of people in a sub group without any control and found MRSA" because all people have some exposure to both potential sources of MRSA. As I said before, it is in my personal best interest for sub-theraputic antibiotics to be banned becuase I support a sales force that sells allternatives to antibiotics. I'd just like to see the science done right instead of having the decision based on crap correlations.

Re: And this is kind of sad

[reve_etrange]

Banning antibiotics in livestock isn't supposed to curtail MRSA infections short-term, it's supposed to allow the percentage of Staph which is MR to gradually fall back to acceptable levels. It's well established that when you stop selecting for drug-resistant bacteria, the population resistance falls relatively quickly - drug-resistance mutations typically compromise some functionality, so non-resistant strains can out-compete resistant ones.

Re: And this is kind of sad

[rajanala83]

This experiment is already done on a much wider scale . - whit the EU and the US as experimental subjects, so to speak. One banning the use of antibiotics for growth enhancement, and one doesn't. A natural experiment, if you want. And there have been pages upon pages of written summaries, reports, studies, etc on the topic, and comparisons, and what not. There even is a transatlantic study group, TATFAR, and here is a visual summary detailing the EU efforts: http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/press/news/130516a.htm EU legislation on animal nutrition banned the use of antibiotics used for growth promotion in animal feed from January 2006. In 2009 the Panel on Biological Hazards assessed the public health significance of meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in animals and foods. It concludes that livestock-associated MRSA represents only a small proportion of all reported MRSA infections in the EU with significant differences between Member States. So the conclusion seems to be that bannin growth enhancing antibiotic use is a crucial step in preventing the rise of resistant microbiota in those conditions, but (of course) not enough to stop the evolution of resistant strains in, for example hospital environments...

Antibiotics not banned in Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

Contrary to what it say above, antibiotics are not completely banned in Europe for preemptive use in farm animal production. However, there is a list of approved antibiotics for such uses, and relevance of the antibiotics for human medicine is a factor in the rules.

Here is a link to the Danish treatment guidelines: http://www.foedevarestyrelsen.dk/english/SiteCollectionDocuments/25_PDF_word_filer%20til%20download/05kontor/Behandlingsvejledning_2011_engelsk.xls (warning: Excel). In column J there is a ranking of relevance to human medicine.

Re:"behind the curve"

[Teun]

The fact the claim of over-indulgence in pre-emptive antibiotics use in cattle is a cause of resistant bacteria strains affecting humans is under-reported in the mainstream US media does not mean it is not supported by reputable scientific studies.

This has nothing to do with pro EU or anti-US but everything with pro-shady business or anti-consumer.

Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus

[12WTF$]

It's what's for dinner!

How sad and ironic...

[Bearhouse]

To think that farm workers provided a vital clue to eradicating smallpox, when Jenner (and others) noticed that after infection with the less dangerous 'cowpox' they were effectively immune.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Jenner

Mankind's ability to abuse and abase the scientific gifts of such great men is seemingly limitless.

Re:How sad and ironic...

[DNS-and-BIND]

This has to be the most mentally confused post I've seen in quite some time.

First, because a long time ago something happened with farm workers means that today another event has some sort of relevance? I'm not seeing it here.

Second, cowpox is a virus, antibiotics cure bacterial infections. They weren't developed until the 1930s.

And this mental vomit is modded up to +4 Informative?!? WTF it has nothing to do with anything.

Re:"behind the curve"

[ericloewe]

First of all, don't blindly trust wikipedia.

Second, drug-resistant bacteria do develop in animals given antibiotics for no real reason (other than the magical, inexplicable enhanced growth == profit margins). Bacteria can be easily transferred from animals to humans. The majority of them is harmless, probably. But, if something nasty does mutate and gains resistance to certain antibiotics, it getting transferred (it will, sooner or later) to humans may be a very big problem.

To make things worse, bacteria like to share genetic material, which helps (among other things) spread immunities to other bacteria.

It's not a matter of trying to connect the dots. It is possible. Which means it will probably happen, given enough occurrences.

Let's assume that you're right. Where do antibiotics go after they leave an organism? A good portion ends up in water supplies, so the antibiotics get further distributed, ending up in humans. Combine small doses of antibiotics with an infection and you have the perfect environment for the development of antibiotic resistance.

But again, let's assume that won't happen. What's the advantage of using antibiotics for no reason, other than somehow making animals grow faster? A larger profit margin for the owner, perhaps.

It boils down to the very likely possibility of some drug-resistant bacteria to show up versus someone's profit margin.

Corn

[ThatsNotPudding]

Cattle will have impressive weight gains when you feed them (heavily subsidized) corn. Until it starts to kill them, as their digestive system didn't evolve (there's that word again) to process an industrialized grain. But you can stave off that death for a while with heavy doses of antibiotics. Just long enough to get them to the slaughterhouse.

Bon Appetit.

Re:"behind the curve"

[Dorianny]

This has nothing to do with pro EU or anti-US but everything with pro-shady business or anti-consumer.

Business are very good at meeting consumer demands and what consumers want is the cheapest piece of meat you can possibly get. There is plenty of meat raised antibiotic-free available for sale and if the majority of consumers chose to buy that instead of the cheapest cut than you would see business quickly changing their practices to fill consumer demand.

Re:so be a vegetarian

[zwarte piet]

If people would eat meat once or twice a week and buy organic meat when they do, the problem wouldn't exist either.

Who says they aren't?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Who says we are applying them randomly to livestock?"

Who says we aren't?

"Antibiotics cost money"

And minor illnesses reduce the accelerated growth that intensive animal farming is trying to do. Which loses money. Applying selectively takes time and effort and that costs money. Mindlessly mass-vaccinating is simple.

Your thinking is far far FAR too narrow. Stretch your thinking brain.

Re:Who says they aren't?

[pepty]

There's nothing random about it: the dosage is calculated so as to maximize animal weight at time of slaughter.

Re:Who says they aren't?

[crmarvin42]

You cannot safely make such a broad generalization here.

Many farms, in my addmitedly anecdotal experience "most", only use antibiotics in a targeted way becuase of the cost associated with their use. Swine farms routinely administer them via feed or water to nursery pigs, but outside of the first month post-weaning, using is dramatically curtailed. Piglets in first couple of weeks post-weaning are very prone to clinical disease outbreaks (which require much higher antibiotic doses to treat), higher mortalities (as a result of disease challenge normally), and yes slower growth.

Sub-theraputic antibiotics can help with all three of these, but the growth factor is actually the least important, becuase by the end of the 2nd month post-weaning any differences disappear into the normal variability in animal performance. It is more about keeping more pigs alive and healthy through the stress of weaning than it is about performance. After they've made it through the most difficult period the value proposition for antibiotics is dramatically reduced, which is why sub-theraputic doses are not as common there. Bascially, they are not worth the cost to many farmers later

Re:It's all bullshit

[reve_etrange]

You're wrong, because you don't understand the methods used. In fact, the linked PLoS ONE article reports the proportion of drug-resistant strains, not just the presence.

Among 99 ILO and 105 AFLO participants, S. aureus nasal carriage prevalence was 41% and 40%, respectively. Among ILO and AFLO S. aureus carriers, MRSA was detected in 7% (3/41) and 7% (3/42), respectively. Thirty seven percent of 41 ILO versus 19% of 42 AFLO S. aureus-positive participants carried MDRSA. S. aureus clonal complex (CC) 398 was observed only among workers and predominated among ILO (13/34) compared with AFLO (1/35) S. aureus-positive workers. Only ILO workers carried scn-negative MRSA CC398 (2/34) and scn-negative MDRSA CC398 (6/34), and all of these isolates were tetracycline resistant.