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Farmers Carry Multidrug-Resistant Staph For Weeks Into Local Communities
An anonymous reader writes: Fresh research out of the UNC Gillings and JHU Bloomberg schools of public health shows industrial farm workers are carrying livestock-associated, multidrug-resistant staph into local communities for weeks at a time. "Among the [22 people tested], 10 workers carried antibiotic-resistant strains of the bacteria in their noses for up to four days. Another six workers were intermittent carriers of the bacteria. The 10 workers found to carry the bacteria persistently had strains associated with livestock that were resistant to multiple drugs, and one also carried MRSA. Three more of the workers tested positive for strains of S. aureus that were not resistant to antibiotics. So in total, 86 percent of the workers in the study carried the S. aureus bacteria, compared with about one-third of the population at large, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." This problem has grown since its last mention on Slashdot. Unfortunately, massive industrial lobbying continues to neuter government action.
Good, this indicates that doctors and people who think they should take antibiotics like vitamins haven't completely screwed up our natural immunities and that most of the world still fights off this infections even though drugs no longer work on them.
Can we please get back to the point where we take antibiotics when we're in need of them, not just because we might have an infection or have a mild infection?
I'm all for taking them in the cases where it will be life threatening not to, but FFS not just because we're sick. We're making all of these things capable of fighting off the drugs and getting ourselves to the point where first world countries with antibiotics are going to be less safe than 3rd world shit holes where the people at least have functional immune systems that can fight off what they see in their environment.
We have survived for hundreds of thousands of years without taking daily antibiotic doses, why do some people and worse still some doctors think we should take them like candy now when someone gets the sniffles.
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Disclaimer: I am no fan of mega-scale industrial farming but if 1/3 of us are carrying this crap around anyway and we aren't dropping in the street or fighting off the zombie apocalypse, I have to wonder how much of a problem it actually is.
The sad thing is that nowadays if you have the sniffles you can't get antibiotics without going to a doctor, and yet if your pet guppy isn't looking so good you can get some for your aquarium. And farmers seem to think antibiotic is an essential nutrient, no problem so long as it's not for humans! But try to get some for yourself and you'll get the lecture about antibiotic resistance. Unless it's for your soap.
On the other hand, at least they have a few antibiotics reserved for humans in real trouble, but on the other hand antibiotics everywhere breed antibiotic resistant bacteria, and many of the mechanisms bacteria use for antibiotic resistance give them total or partial immunity to other antibiotics.
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Keeping animal captive and housed together is literally begging for worse and worse strains of diseases. Hoof and mouth, avian flu, mad cow.. Then we get stuff like e. coli from veggies, which isn't even from the plant: it's from the manure it's covered in. Adding antibiotics only accelerates the process. Yeehaw.
Well they feed the livestock Tetracycline by the shovel full. Of course, a person that needs the drug has to pay at least 10000% more and can't afford to go see their doctor unless they have insurance. Lucky pigs.
Ah blame the migrant. Neat trick you did there. Almost all livestock in the US are fed low dose antiboitics throughout their life. This isn't to keep them healthy, it's to provide weight gain.
Almost every chunk of meat you buy in the US contains antibiotics unless you intentionally exclude all but carefully labeled meat products. Animals being fed antibiotics excrete those antibiotics into the environment through their urine, feces and even through their skin. Being under constant exposure to environmental antibiotics through contact with waste products, the animals themselves and their feed which contains the antibiotics is no doubt going to lead to evolution of resistance in the bacteria inhabiting your body.
Lets play the game of most likely answer, that the migrants are taking over the counter antibiotics while they are outside the US when many never leave the US for any extended period. OR, that exposure to the environmental antibiotics used in animal production is what's causing it. If you think the most probable answer is the first as you suggested I can't help you.
they're literally disease farms
And, not to mention, the single largest consumer of water and the single largest source of carbon emissions.
.: Semper Absurda
More so, since the livestock tends to be kept separated
Obviously you have never visited, driven past or even seen on television, one of these farms.
.: Semper Absurda
Tragedy of the commons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
RTFP (read the fucking paper).
While I'm sure you're much more of an expert then the researches who actually conducted this study, they do specify that the strains present are from livestock based on genetic testing. The introduction in the paper specifies why those strains are livestock-associated and what that means.
Here's the link, since you seem to have missed it even though the link is the first two words of the summary:
http://oem.bmj.com/content/ear...
So it seems to me that responsible researchers would go a bit farther before reporting: Like by doing genetic testing on the strains of bug in the various workers and the livestock, and running models on the results to try to identfy whether the bugs are from the herd or the workers.
So it seems to me that a responsible commenter would go a bit farther before accusing the researchers of not thinking of something that they in fact did think of and went to great effort to do genetic testing on hundreds of samples for. But I guess you couldn't be bothered to at least RTFA (read the fucking abstract).
I'm actually pretty impressed that the summary linked to the actual paper and not just the journalist article. I'm not impressed that you didn't at least read the abstract before commenting.
Indeed. Or restated in simpler form: A community that does not keep its egoistic idiots under control, eventually collapses. That seems to be the primary problem of the human race at this time.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Good, this indicates that doctors and people who think they should take antibiotics like vitamins haven't completely screwed up our natural immunities and that most of the world still fights off this infections even though drugs no longer work on them.
The problem with Staph Aureus is that it's omnipresent in the respiratory tract and skin. It seems to have spent a long time evolving with immune systems, because it has two lines of defense (producing catalase and carrotenoids) which neutralise two of the chemicals that white blood cells use to break down foriegn bodies (superoxide and singlet oxygen). Additionally the protein A in the cell wall confuses the shit out of white blood cells, making them difficult to detect.
Add that to producing some really nasty toxins, and that's why a Staph Aureus bacteremia, even MSSA has about a 30% kill rate, even if you're in a modern hospital.
So it would be nice to have some antibiotics to fall back on, at least in the case of golden staph.
Can we please get back to the point where we take antibiotics when we're in need of them, not just because we might have an infection or have a mild infection?
Your favourite ID doctor, and mine, posted about this today. He has a solution:
The solution? We do not want to make antibiotics more toxic to the patient, so I suggest that every time there is an order for Zosyn and vancomycin (or whatever your decerebrate choice is at your institution) the ordering physician receives a short, painful shock from the keyboard. If you really think the patient needs the antibiotics you will take the shock. That would likely solve a lot of issues with inappropriate antibiotic use and be simpler than a stewardship program.
Although in this case the problem is prophylactic antibiotics given to livestock.
I believe 'Sheep Looking Up' and on a minor scale 'Stand on Sanzibar', both by John Brunner, should be mandatory readings in school. And if you are into such literatur: 'Schockwaverider'.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
What you are suggesting is only possible after a second, much larger federal grant is secured.
"Omg, we've identified this potentially huge problem that we're going to spread FUD about. We need the taxpayer to give us MOAR MONEEZ to study it further, or WES ALLSA GONNA DIESA!"
Not a single chunk of meat I buy in the US contains antibiotics, because I only buy from the farm down the road from me and they don't use antibiotics. They don't need to because they don't overpopulate their farm.
So, perhaps you should think a little bit before making broad, sweeping generalizations and accusing me of buying antibiotic-laced meat.
In light of this, it makes perfect sense that the former Plum Island animal disease institute be moved to the center of the country within eyesight of a fucking football stadium.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Bio_and_Agro-Defense_Facility
75% of the subjects had S. aureus in their sinuses, 51% had non-livestock associated penicillin resistant SA (MRSA), 46% had livestock associated MRSA. But the sample size is so small (22 people) the study doesn't prove much beyond the fact that once colonized by S. aureus you tend to stay colonized.
to quarantine them for weeks, like the early astronauts, before letting them come into town for supplies.
Yup, and we are worried about ebola when a bigger danger is lurking right in our very noses.
There is a film (Resistance) about this. I think it will be free to view sometime soon, but I saw it in NYC at a theater and it has been previewing at various places around the country.
Looks to me like this study was about how long bacteria live in noses of people. So they found people that would have a lot of bacteria in their noses, like farm workers, and looked for bacteria. BIG SURPRISE! They find some.
So I wonder how much MRSA and Multi-resistant other stuff they would find in noses of healthcare workers, or noses of teachers. Both groups that are exposed to a lot of mammals, in this case people, and thus flying bacteria, and thus all kinds of bacteria, including the nasty resistant stuff.. Compare those counts with farm works and then get back to me. Maybe we will have a reason to get wound up then...
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"-B.Franklin
That is, they give it to livestock not because the livestock is sick, but because it makes the livestock larger - with more muscles.
As a direct result, the livestock develop antibiotic resistant bacteria.
Congress keeps letting them do this because the companies that sell it give them lots of money.
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My wife and I joined a local meat CSA for the same reason. Not only does the meat taste better (grass fed is way better than corn/grain fed) but it's antibiotic free. We also like to support local farmers and local agriculture. Best decision we ever made.
well we can just scale that up and apply the results to millions of farm workers worldwide (not)
this is such a small pool of tested people that the results cannot be applied beyond that specific group.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
good news: http://www.wfaa.com/story/news...
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I have long thought that recreational drugs should be legalized, while antibiotics should be treated the way we treat controlled substances. After all, recreational drugs hurt no one, except in a minority of cases, the user, while misuse of antibiotics threaten everybody. Besides, it'll provide employment to drug cops once we've finally ended prohibition.
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
OK, first, how are the people posting about doctors over prescribing antibiotics being modded insightful? That's not really a problem any more, and it's specifically NOT what the article is about....
This should be a test case for those people that say that the Free Market is good and Government is bad. We have a problem with industrial farmers (I hate calling them farmers. I grew up on a farm. What they do has little resemblance to farming) abusing antibiotics. This is NOT new news. We've known this for a long time. There is no government oversight on this issue.
If all the libertarians and righties were correct, people would stop buying meat from these industrial farmers and they'd stop the practice. I should note that most of the people I see buying meat that's grass fed, organic, and cruelty free are all lefties (but that's because we're the only ones that actually give a shit about other people. Wow. That sounded jaded even to me. I'm going to leave it up there, but... there's some hidden anger I didn't realize I had.. I should examine that. anyway)
What we see is the opposite of that. Without a strong cop (government) regulating for the common good, the market is doing what it's designed to do.... Maximize profit and let society deal with externalized losses. The solution to this is to have the government stop pussyfooting around and regulate. It is heavily lobbied to make sure that doesn't happen, because our system is corrupt.
Yes, it's corrupt. The solution to that isn't to get rid of big government. That's exactly what the people doing the corrupting WANT. We need regulation of industry (not take over, regulate. No one's saying to socialize. Calm Down.) because industry always tries to externalize the losses to maximize profits, and someone needs to tell them "knock it off.".
Also, the free market is a myth. A useful tool to demonstrate and idea, much like a frictionless wheel to demonstrate basic physics ideas to a student... but we've known about this for a LONG time. We have many examples of companies acting badly in the last decade, but no examples of people punishing them into changing their behavior..... I'm still looking at you BP...
You missed the real issue... while you still have a point. But the issue the article is about is not the prescription of antibiotics to humans but to cattle, that's actually why it talks about farmers
Cattle is fed antibiotics as a "preventive measure" just in case and with the aim of lowering production costs by avoiding diseases. Note that I haven't used quotes around 'fed' as they are literally doing that shoveling massive amounts of antibiotica in the the cattle's fodder.
You have clearly understood the dangers of prescribing unnecessary antibiotica to humans... now think about that at a ten of hundredfold scale which is what is happening right now
These antibiotics affect the public health in several manners:
The issue is not new and actually already causing quite some trouble, deaths and huge economical costs: You may recall the bacteria 'Salmonella' that is practically ubiquitous in all poultry products that you can find in a common supermarket. This microorganism causes thousands of infections yearly and including deaths to such an extend that in warm EU countries like Spain it has been forbidden to use eggs and egg products in public establishments during the summer. These organisms are actually resistant strains that have been selected and thrive in the antibiotic laden bodies of industrial poultry.
Another source of concern is the proliferation of "superbugs" in the hospitals which are already causing intra-hospitalary infections to humans ending many times in chronic diseases which are expensive to treat
This goes to such an extend that here in Holland personel of risk groups (farmers, meat-industry workers, veterinaries, etc) are required to access the hospitals and sanitary instalations through a separate entry and are also held in isolated precincts
.And there is the risk of direct infections such as we saw with the bird flu or the 2009 Q Fever epidemics here in Holland, not to forget the Mad Cows episodes.
And the problem is not only the fact that these medicines are being used, the problem is the humungous scale of the operation as cattle's biomass exceeds the mass of the human population several times (!).
Summing up: We are wasting a valuable weapon in the fight against diseases and at the same time creating new and costly health hazards just to get some extra bacon. Most of which we directly throw away
Some interesting texts:
Antibiotic Residues - A Global Health Hazard [Nisha A.R.],
-- 29A the number of the Beast