First Study Finds MRSA in U.S. Pigs

Scientists from the University of Iowa have conducted the first test of U.S. swine for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), the bacterium responsible for more U.S. deaths than AIDS. Of the 200 pigs the team tested, 70 percent carried a strain of MRSA, ST398, that is known to affect humans.

The scientists found that almost half of 20 workers on local pig farms carried the same strain of MRSA, suggesting a route to the wider community. So far no one has tested MRSA patients in U.S. hospitals to identify whether they carry the strain. The federal government is testing meat (but not livestock) for MRSA, but hasn't released its results. In the United Kingdom, at least three people are known to have contracted the ST398 strain (see Belfast Telegraph article at http://ucsaction.org/ct/Rp2RChK164by/), and experts are speculating that they probably contracted it from handling or eating meat.

"The recent wave of MRSA-related illnesses and deaths among otherwise healthy students and athletes is very troubling," said Margaret Mellon, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Food and Environment Program. "We need to determine as soon as possible whether some of those illnesses and deaths are traceable to the overuse of antibiotics on swine farms."

UCS and other organizations have joined in an effort to stop or at least cut back the application of antibiotics to factory farm animals for the purposes of promoting animal weight gain and reducing animal deaths that otherwise would result from overcrowded, stressful and unsanitary conditions. For more information on this campaign, see http://www.keepantibioticsworking.com/new/index.cfm.