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.

Comments

Natural immunity

[BitZtream]

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.

Re:Natural immunity

[Anonymous Coward]

The widespread use of antibiotics for every little thing has largely been eliminated in the medical community. The problem these days is farmers overusing them on animals. And by overuse I mean "routinely give whether it is necessary or not." THIS is what is producing antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, and THIS is what will create the next pandemic.

Re:Natural immunity

[whoever57]

the courses prevent enough sickness that farmers that ONLY give antibiotics to sick animals, at much higher doses, actually use just as many antibiotics.

You seem to be under the same misapprehnsion as much of the farming community -- that high doses of antibiotics are dangerous, whereas the reverse is true. Low doses are far more likely to cause resistance than high doses given for the proper lenght of time.

Re:Natural immunity

[philip.paradis]

Given that you bothered to reference "lenght (sic) of time," I find it disheartening that you have also demonstrated apparent failure to comprehend or intelligently consider bounding problems, population density, transmission risks and rates, practical effects of seemingly low mutation rates, microbiology, and systems thinking. In short, all activities involving large scale administration of antibiotics to livestock at dosages resulting in appreciable treatment/prevention efficacy are practices which drive substantial and increasing risks to public health.

The math doesn't lie, and the trending curves of probabilities associated with widespread epidemics aren't exactly uplifting. I'll make a preemptive recommendation that you suppress the urge to post anything resembling a cliché "citation needed" response here. Given the circumstances at hand, devotion of your time to even a cursory review of the aforementioned subject matter would likely be a more productive activity. Such study will necessarily involve your review of all citations referenced in said materials, review of nested citations, etc. You wouldn't want to compound foolishness with yet more foolishness, would you?

I'm willing to admit that I may be entirely wrong in my assessment of your level of knowledge, with the corollary that you are simply betting that your benefits will outweigh your risk in this area for the duration of your lifespan. However, given that I know nothing of your mode of living or the measures of your personal resource reserves on hand for reaction/relocation/adaptation/insulation in response a large scale communicable disease crisis, I must hazard a guess that you're either (A) dangerously ignorant of reality or (B) very well prepared to deal with things turning shitty in a hurry. It is my measured estimation that the odds of your membership in the intersecting set are quite low, given your mid-range UID and the generally incongruous nature of the respective attributes of the A and B sets.

Re:Farmers != Farm Workers

[rahvin112]

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.

Re:When self interest supersedes the common good..

[gweihir]

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.