Nicholas Kristof in today's NY Times has a challenging column, asking whether large-scale pig farms could be contributing to the incubation of antibiotic-resistant staph infections in humans.
Kristof writes that he was contacted by a physician, Dr. Tom Anderson from northeastern Indiana, who reported a rash of methicillin-resistant staph (MRSA) infections among his patients.
Dr. Anderson at first couldn’t figure out why he was seeing patient after patient with MRSA in a small Indiana town. And then he began to wonder about all the hog farms outside of town. Could the pigs be incubating and spreading the disease?
“Tom was very concerned with what he was seeing,” recalls his widow, Cindi Anderson. “Tom said he felt the MRSA was at phenomenal levels.”
By last fall, Dr. Anderson was ready to be a whistle-blower, and he agreed to welcome me on a reporting visit and go on the record with his suspicions. That was a bold move, for any insinuation that the hog industry harms public health was sure to outrage many neighbors.
So I made plans to come here and visit Dr. Anderson in his practice. And then, very abruptly, Dr. Anderson died at the age of 54.
...more...
Kristof reports that there was no autopsy, but a blood test indicated Dr. Anderson may have died from a heart attack or aneurysm.
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.
Kristof describes that a strain of MRSA that started on a hog farm in Holland went on to spread rapidly through the country, especially in hog-producing areas. This same strain of MRSA has now been found in the U.S.
So what’s going on here, and where do these antibiotic-resistant infections come from? Probably from the routine use — make that the insane overuse — of antibiotics in livestock feed. This is a system that may help breed virulent “superbugs” that pose a public health threat to us all.
He promises more in his next column on Sunday.
In the meantime, a bit of Googling determines that others have touched on this story in the past.
Andrew Schneider of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer last June posted a blog item on research indicating that MRSA may be spreading in this country via livestock production -- but that no government agency was testing for it.
Whereas our government apparently doesn't see the need nor have the ability to see if pigs in the U.S. are carrying MRSA, Tara Smith, an assistant professor for the University of Iowa department of epidemiology, and her graduate researchers have done what is apparently is the first testing of swine for MRSA in the U.S.
They swabbed the noses of 209 pigs from 10 farms in Iowa and Illinois and found MRSA in 70 percent of the porkers.
The Boston Globe reported on this phenomenon in 2007:
Research has shown that three of every four newly emerging diseases in the world have their roots in the animal kingdom. A prime culprit is the pig. Swine have long been recognized as remarkably efficient incubators for germs - and for the ability to take parts of germs from different species and reassemble them into dangerous, novel viruses and bacteria.
And then it doesn't take much for a germ from a pig to make the leap into a human.
In part, that's because pigs turn out to bear a striking anatomical resemblance to people.
The CDC has investigated MRSA among livestock and poultry and humans.
It appears this is their most recent Emerging Infectious Diseases report on the topic: Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus in Poultry.
The abstract
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has been detected in several species and animal-derived products. To determine whether MRSA is present in poultry, we sampled 50 laying hens and 75 broiler chickens. MRSA was found in some broiler chickens but no laying hens. In all samples, spa type t1456 was found.
Seems it's time to start insisting on increased surveillance of MRSA among livestock and poultry ... and for meat eaters to throughly wash their hands after preparing their meals.