Pigs, Pig Farmers, and MRSA

[weinoo]

Along with a topic like this, Nicholas Kristoff in yesterday's NY Times wrote a column about pig farming and the rise of MRSA, a rather resistant staph infection that has been around since the mid-1990s or so.

The larger question is whether we as a nation have moved to a model of agriculture that produces cheap bacon but risks the health of all of us. And the evidence, while far from conclusive, is growing that the answer is yes.

A few caveats: The uncertainties are huge, partly because our surveillance system is wretched (the cases here in Camden were never reported to the health authorities). The vast majority of pork is safe, and there is no proven case of transmission of MRSA from eating pork.

This has led me to believe that perhaps I really should be buying all my porky products from small farmers that aren't using all sorts of weird things in their feed. But it also has me worried, from reading the column, that this thing could end up spreading to every pig in the world.

Continuing, Kristoff reports:

Now this same strain of MRSA has also been found in the United States. A new study by Tara Smith, a University of Iowa epidemiologist, found that 45 percent of pig farmers she sampled carried MRSA, as did 49 percent of the hogs tested.

Those are some damn high percentages, folks. So, who's to blame? Feds, farmers, agricultural companies, drug companies...the list goes on and on.

And how do we finally figure out what the hell is safe to eat? Full story here.

[docsconz]

I would bet that if everyone was actually tested, say in the NYC metropolitan area, the incidence of MRSA would be quite high, perhaps even alarmingly so. All MRSA signifies is that a particular organism is resistant (i.e. not killed by) most forms of penicillin, a traditional (since the 1940's) first line antibiotic against staph aureus infections. It so happens that staph aureus is a particularly common bug. We are all pretty much carriers of it. Some forms, however, in some people, become pathogenic. If that bug happens to be MRSA, it is more difficult to treat. The problem is that the prolific use of antibiotics has led to resistance, in pathologic organisms and non-pathologic. The fact that a particular staph bacterium is MRSA doesn't make it inherently bad. What is bad is that the genes for resistance are spreading to areas that have traditionally not been an issue and more pathogenic bugs are carrying it.

As for who is to blame, everybody. Antibiotics became ubiquitous and were felt to be a miracle cure (which they were and still are). A desire for a quick, inexpensive fix has led to this whether it was the person with a cold demanding antibiotics from their doctor, the doctor caving in and prescribing them unnecessarily, the demand for cheap food and factory farming which led to overcrowded conditions and tools to combat the inevitable infections, etc.

[docsconz]

I would add, that in this instance, the drug companies are probably not the ones to blame, though they may be guilty of plenty of other things.

[GlorifiedRice]

How is Hatfield meats in Pa?

Are they hormone and antibiotic free?

[annabelle]

where do these antibiotic-resistant infections come from? Probably from the routine use — make that the insane overuse — of antibiotics

Do lawyers normally argue science like this?

[docsconz]

where do these antibiotic-resistant infections come from? Probably from the routine use — make that the insane overuse — of antibiotics

Do lawyers normally argue science like this?

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Do you think that he is wrong? His opinion is certainly generally accepted thinking amongst the medical community.

[teagal]

Another reason to eat locally...and this sure is reason enough for me !

[annabelle]

Doc, I'm objecting to his scare-mongoring tone coupled with his street cred "I-grew-up-on-a-farm" attitude. Frankly, he sounds like an anti-vaxxer.

[nibor]

Doc, I'm objecting to his scare-mongoring tone coupled with his street cred "I-grew-up-on-a-farm" attitude.  Frankly, he sounds like an anti-vaxxer.

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Was there something in that article about vaccines? If so, I missed it.

[annabelle]

No, there wasn't.

[Magictofu]

I'm in the opinion that the current way our agricultural system is being developed is unsustainable and that we run the risk of having to face a major disaster related to food-production one day or another.

It could come from treatment resistant bugs to the fast spread of a disease affecting one of our genetically weak major crops (e.g. corn or wheat) or simply because from the effects of climate change on certain regions (Read US energy secretary and nobel laureate Steven Chu's comments on how agriculture could disapear in California over the next decades here or here.).

Buying "local" and "organic" helps but most efforts in this direction only address these larger issues marginally.

[Dave Hatfield]

How is Hatfield meats in Pa?

Are they hormone and antibiotic free?

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Anything with the name Hatfield on it must be good!

I'm no relation (that I know of) to this branch of the clan, but

I'll stick by them.

As to pork I'm glad I'm here in France where they're pretty careful about additives to animal feeds and where our local butchers post a notice showing which local farms their pork come from so you can go look for yourself should you care to.