MRSA and Congress

On Sat, 1 Mar 2008 11:34:51 -0000, "Pat Gardiner"
wrote:

Pat's Note: I gather from the Politburo's re-emergence that they have still
not caught on to why I'm so cheerful about the certainty of my almost decade
long campaign coming to a successful conclusion and of their inglorious
demotion to a very uncomplimentary footnote in history.

The following report deals mainly with the allegations of antibiotics being
used as a growth promoter in pigs and I would point out that in the UK.
antibiotics were, as far as I know, used legally to deal with disease -
especially the effects of PMWS and other Circoviruses.

The article is the American pig industries line, publicised by a Pharma
company, so is naturally defensive of the industry. That's perfectly OK by
me.

The critical thing for me, and I'm proud of any small part I played, is to
get the issue of pigs and MRSA onto the table and the table of Congress
sponsored by a Kennedy. They will get to the bottom of the problem now.

Compare that with Britain's deplorable performance of hiding up animal
disease, allowing criminals to persecute and flagrantly libel the
whistle-blower and refusing to test the pigs for MRSA.

The government and its stakeholders are in for a rough time, and at the same
time as writing this I am listening to a speech by the PM constantly
mentioning animal disease as a massive problem.

It looks like he is about to blow the whistle himself. It's not impossible,
he can't go on refusing to test the pigs when the US Congress are on the
case.

The Canadian and Dutch research figures prominently in the American
discussions and the inclusion of their scientists and absence of British
scientists in the international investigation notable. You can't get a
clearer indication of the disgrace that is inevitableresult of the decade
long animal health chaos.

I took a fresh look back at 2005 this morning.

It is quite clear that they know CA-MRSA in Holland was originally from
foreign sources and appeared much later as a major problem than it did in
the UK

I wonder who were the foreigners?

I'm off for an hour or two in the greenhouse, now do be careful of phone
calls and emails between yourselves for obvious reasons.


http://www.animal-health-online.de/i...-food-animals/

1.03.2008
USA: CDC Tells Congress MRSA Not From Food Animals

Washington (NPPC) - Claims that food animals, such as pigs, are increasingly
the source of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria in
humans are greatly exaggerated, according to information from the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In a recent letter to House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson,
D-Minn., and panel members Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa, Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.,
and Robin Hayes, R-N.C., the CDC said if transmission of MRSA from food
animals to people occurs, "it likely accounts for a very small proportion of
human infections in the United States."

Studies conducted in Canada and the Netherlands found MRSA in pigs and pork
producers on some farms. Citing those studies, several newspaper articles
and editorials and critics of the pork industry, including the Pew
Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, have attempted to link
pigs, pork products and the use of antibiotics in livestock and poultry with
the recent rise in MRSA-related illnesses.

"Statements connecting pork products and MRSA and linking the bacterial
infection to the use of antibiotics in pigs are seriously misleading," said
Jill Appell, a pork producer from Altona, Ill., and president of the
National Pork Producers Council. "Pigs are not responsible for the increase
in MRSA cases contrary to the claims of our critics and some editorial
writers."

The Dutch food safety authority, the National Institute for Public Health
and the Environment, conducted a risk assessment in the Netherlands and
concluded that the MRSA present in food animals such as pigs is not a
food-safety threat. And a recent Institute of Food Technologists report
stated that correlating the risk of antibiotic use in animals and antibiotic
resistance in humans is not possible.

The CDC pointed out that 80 percent of life-threatening MRSA infections
appear to be the result of patient-to-patient transmission in inpatient
health-care facilities. Additionally, the "vast majority" of
community-associated infections result from person-to-person transmission,
it said. The agency also pointed out that it has conducted numerous
investigations of community-associated MRSA outbreaks, and "in none of these
investigations has animal exposure been identified as a risk factor for
infection."

The U.S. pork industry has funded research to determine if MRSA is present
in the domestic swine herd and supports additional epidemiological research
and surveillance systems in health-care facilities to monitor the disease.
The industry also has established a panel of U.S., Dutch and Canadian
researchers to discuss and coordinate U.S. and international research
efforts on MRSA in pigs.

The CDC has several infection surveillance programs for monitoring MRSA,
including the Emerging Infections Program and the National Health and
Nutrition Examination Surveys.

MRSA is a type of Staphylococcus aureus, a common bacterium found throughout
the environment and carried in the nasal passages and on the skin of more
than 30 percent of the population. MRSA, however, is resistant to certain
antibiotics. There are at least three types of MRSA. Virulent forms are most
commonly found in health-care settings such as hospitals and long-term care
facilities and can cause serious illness and even death. Less virulent forms
of MRSA are commonly found throughout the general population and on animals.
A third form, which is less invasive than the health-care-associated forms,
recently was discovered on some swine farms in the Netherlands and in
Canada.

Groups such as Keep Antibiotics Working, which includes the Human Society of
the United States and the Sierra Club, are urging Congress to pass
legislation prohibiting the use in livestock and in animal feed of
sub-therapeutic antibiotics, which they claim are being overused and, as a
result, causing a proliferation of drug-resistant "super bugs" such as MRSA.
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., are
sponsoring bills to ban certain animal antibiotics.

NPPC has been working to defeat the measures and is cautioning lawmakers not
to adopt policies that could adversely affect the pork industry without more
information about MRSA and any link it may have to pigs. In the Canadian
study, for example, while one-fifth of the pork producers were found to be
carrying the same form of MRSA as their hogs, they did not have a higher
rate of MRSA-associated illness than the general population.
Read the CDC letter here (PDF).
-
NPPC is the global voice for the U.S. pork industry, fighting for reasonable
legislation and regulations, developing revenue and market opportunities,
and protecting producers' livelihoods.