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

Posted by Soulskill on from the that's-awfully-mean-of-them dept.

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."

8 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. PIck Your Hospital? by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?

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  2. This is kind of fun by ZarathustraDK · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

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  3. Re:"behind the curve" by Pseudonym+Authority · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

  4. And this is kind of sad by c0lo · · Score: 5, Funny

    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?

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    1. Re: And this is kind of sad by ericloewe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  5. Antibiotics not banned in Europe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  6. Re:"behind the curve" by Teun · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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.

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  7. Corn by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.