MRSA and commercial livestock Archives

What’s in Your Meat?

Published on February 13, 2013

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A lot of antibiotics, growth hormones and myriad of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, that’s what’s in your meat. The FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine released its third annual report on antimicrobials sold or distributed for food-producing animals in 2012. Guess what, the 2008 ‘guidance’ offered to industrial meat farmers to reduce the use of prophylactic antibiotics in their livestock isn’t working out so well. According the report, both antibiotic use and antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria are increasing, rather rapidly, especially in poultry. In 2011:

29.9 million pounds of antibiotics were sold in the US for meat and poultry production
7.7 millions pounds of antibiotics were sold in the US for humans

Out of some 1840 retail meats tested (meats destined for sale, not the animals, the packaged meats in your supermarket):

Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria was found in 64% of the samples. Pork chops had the lowest prevalence (39.8%) and ground turkey had the highest (80.2%). (Remember the connection between E. coli in poultry and treatment resistant urinary tract infections in women.)
Salmonella bacteria was found in 44.5% of meats sampled and antibiotic resistance grew from 10-44% depending upon the strain of bacteria.
Multi-drug resistance grew by 43% in chicken breast and 33% in ground turkey since 2010.

And that’s just the beginning. Earlier this year, researchers found the deadly methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria in pig farms and retail meats. MRSA was not tested in these samples, neither were growth hormones or growth promoting drugs like ractopamide – banned in other countries but not in the US – though fed to 60-80% of the livestock here and thought to be responsible for more sickened or dead pigs than any other drug on the market. Nope, those endocrine disrupting chemicals weren’t measured.

It seems we humans are a veritable garbage dump for chemical waste disguised as food. Thank you Big Ag! And thank you FDA for such a stellar job ‘regulating’ these chemicals. It was a stroke of brilliance letting these companies decide the safety of their own drugs and chemicals. It is much more efficient that way. And providing gentle ‘guidance’ to nudge them to do to the right thing – that shows leadership and an unparalleled commitment to human health.

I think it’s time for a new model, how about you?

From Humans to Pigs and Back Again: the Latest Strain of MRSA

by Chandler Marrs, PhD

Published on December 26, 2012

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Responsible for over 250,000 hospitalizations annually in the US, methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections are quickly becoming the next great threat to modern medicine.

In February of this year, the threat escalated when scientists and medical epidemiologists identified a new strain of MRSA that originated in humans (first as a methicillin susceptible strain), then infected nearby livestock (pigs). With the heavy prophylatic use of antibiotics in commercial livestock farming, the ST398 strain of MRSA quickly became resistant to not only methicillian but also a host of other antibiotics including at least dozen beta-lactam antibiotics and tetracycline. It then jumped back to humans in a more deadly form.

The ST398 strain of MRSA has also been found in milk from commercial dairy farms in Europe and in animals from 19 countries and four continents.

The presence of MRSA on commercial livestock is growing. One recent study in Belgium found MRSA in 26 of 30 farms tested and the prevalence of MRSA in pig farmers was 760 times greater than in the general population.

A study comparing organic pig farms to non-organic commercial livestock operations in the Netherlands found the presence of MRSA in only 17% organic facilities and 3% of the pigs themselves. This is compared to a larger study a couple years earlier where 71% of non-organic commercial facilities tested positive for MRSA, with 38% of all pigs testing positive. In the US, MRSA ladden pork products can be found in at least 6% of retail meats and methicillin susceptible staph bacteria was identified in 64% of retail meats tested.

Experts warn that commercial livestock farming is becoming a public health threat that should not be ignored any longer.