Letters to the Editor
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Old news that no one in ag or pharma wants to admit
"In the Netherlands, farm-animal MRSA has been found in 20% of pork, 21% of chicken and 3% of beef on sale to the public. "
See in the PDF linked here:
http://tinyurl.com/2ocmk9
In one 2005 Dutch study cited on the CDC website, a study of a group of 26 pig farmers to determine the methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus prevalence rate found it was
>760 times greater than the rate of patients admitted to
Dutch hospitals.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol11no12/pdfs/05-0428.pdf
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didn't read the whole article
but in your header it says that MRSA bacteria is drug resistant. MRSA stands for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, meaning it is resistant to methicillin, but can be treated with sulfa drugs, vancomycin, clindamycin, and tetracycline. I am definitely not for feeding animals chemicals or drugs though, and it's no good to get MRSA, but a lot of people who get it are people who are prone to infection anyway, like diabetics. Even for them, MRSA is not a death sentence.
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VEGETARIANISM
love,
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Pumping livestock full of antibiotics simply can't help the situation, but...
... let's face it -- we're a society that abuses antibiotics. Bacteria become resistant when they're exposed to doses not strong enough to kill them, yet we have anti-bacterial everything on the shelves providing ample small doses. Doctors prescribe antibiotics when they're not necessary. Patients frequently do not finish their entire schedule of antibiotics after they 'feel better'. Little by little, we're creating the superbugs through a number of avenues. But unfortunately, non-anti-bacterial soap doesn't sell, outside of a hospital, you can't force patients to take their medications, and people with a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between a virus and bacteria will continue to hound their doctors for pills to make them feel better.
And it's not just MRSA, that's just the one making the rounds in the media. Sure, it can be treated with vancomycin, but what about VRSA? New, resistant strains are being found at rates that exceed the speed at which new antibiotics are developed and approved for use in humans. These antibiotics are not to be tread upon lightly -- these are the silver bullets, the ones administered in controlled hospital settings, not dosed out of brown plastic bottles. Each time they're used, they have the risk of assisting in the creation of yet another strain of superbug. These 'silver bullets' are also increasingly dangerous for the patients.
MRSA is not a death sentence, but a 25+% mortality rate isn't something you want to be gambling with either. The strains that are becoming resistant to imipenem, meropenem and vancomycin are even more frightening with the potential for higher mortality rates as the number of fall back drugs becomes fewer and fewer.
A basic understanding of how to use (non anti-bacterial) soap and hot water and the ability to endure a common cold without running to the doctor for anti-biotics will help far more than anything.
This is about education. Elimination of factory farming techniques will help, but in the long run, the contributions big bad meat business is going to be vastly overshadowed by an ignorant public.
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Eating meat...
It is only anecdotal, but I gave up eating meat and milk products when I was 22 (I'm 46 now)... though I do eat fish perhaps twice a week. My sugar intake is very low as well. In the 24 years that I have eaten this way, I can count on one hand the number of times that I have been sick to the point that I needed to stay in bed. In the winter when everyone is getting sick, I will feel the effects of whatever is going around (my immune system will fire off with some congestion, slightly sore throat etc.)... but it never takes hold.
My brothers and sisters, who otherwise live healthy lives, but eat meat, are knocked out yearly with one thing or another. Additionally, I have gained a total of five pounds since I was 22. Now, I am sure some of my good fortune in health is from genetics, but I am quite certain that my diet is responsible for some if not a lot of my enduring health.
Finally, I recall when I stopped eating meat (and I ate meat daily)... I noticed a level of stress was eliminated from my daily life. As they say in the ads, individual results may vary...
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This is nothing new
Back in the 1970s, when I was married to a medical student, I often attended Saturday lectures with him. I will never forget a public health doctor telling us about the danger of antibiotic resistance. She had a lot of ammo: whole hospitals had been shut down because of out-of-control antibiotic-resistant infections. Her villains were needlessly prescribed antibiotics and those used on farms. Anti-bacterial wipes weren't even a presence at that time. This isn't a new problem, and it doesn't date from the 90s, though that may be when even the newest antibiotics became useless.
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GMO connection?
Genetically modified food products involve introducing antibiotic resistance genes into the crop. When the silage is subsequently tilled into the soil, these genes are readily picked up by soil bacteria; most bacterial species are fairly adept at "trying out" samples of DNA from their environment. Coupled with the outrageous antibiotic use, this could be a part of the explanation for the surge in antibiotic resistance. When a population of bacteria is challenged with antibiotics, there are likely to be many individuals with resistance to pass on, courtesy of Monsanto.
By the way Carrie, while most people infected with MRSA are elderly or immunosuppressed, not all are. When I was 21 and as fit as could be (200 mile bike rides were routine), I nearly lost a foot to staph. I did temporarily misplace one-fouth of my body-weight. Eight years later I was struck again. Lucky for me, neither case was MRSA, just good old-fashioned drug-sensitive staph.
While I'm rambling, my sister-in-law got a community-caused MRSA infection from a river guide. Since he didn't have health insurance, he went on to infect many others before he was cured. Our lack of universal health care may speed the spread of any and every nasty infection that comes along.
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we are what we eat
pretty much all an animal has to do in order to be fit for human consumption is walk off the truck when it gets to the slaughter house. if it is dead or incapacitated then it becomes animal feed. animals contract infections like MRSA for the same reasons that humans get TB when they live in slums- crowded, filthy conditions. this problem is driven largely by consumer demand- it is time to stop demanding lower prices and start demanding decent, ethical food. we are what we eat and right now its making us sick.