In article >,
Omelet > wrote:
> In article > ,
> Dave Smith > wrote:
>
> > Dimitri wrote:
> > > Get ready!
> > >
> > > IMHO there are going to be some pretty good pork prices in our near
> > > future.
> > >
> >
> > Or.... they could decide to slaughter a bunch of livestock and burn the
> > carcasses like they did with foot and mouth a few years back.
> >
> >
> > I was listening to a program on the radio yesterday that reported there
> > is no link to pigs, You don't get the virus from pigs. You cannot get it
> > from eating the meat. There is nothing to be worried about with pork
> > products.
>
> Very true.
>
> This virus is only being passed from human to human.
>
> Many are calling it the Mexico flu' which is far more accurate.
Vera Cruz is more accurate. Another CAFO to thank for an interesting
life. I mean is this serendipitous or what?
70% of antibiotics go into meat production.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/op...15kristof.html
March 15, 2009
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Pathogens in Our Pork
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
We donıt add antibiotics to baby food and Cocoa Puffs so that children
get fewer ear infections. Thatıs because we understand that the overuse
of antibiotics is already creating ³superbugs² resistant to medication.
Yet we continue to allow agribusiness companies to add antibiotics to
animal feed so that piglets stay healthy and donıt get ear infections.
Seventy percent of all antibiotics in the United States go to healthy
livestock, according to a careful study by the Union of Concerned
Scientists and thatıs one reason weıre seeing the rise of pathogens
that defy antibiotics.
These dangerous pathogens are now even in our food supply. Five out of
90 samples of retail pork in Louisiana tested positive for MRSA an
antibiotic-resistant staph infection according to a peer-reviewed
study published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology last year. And
a recent study of retail meats in the Washington, D.C., area found MRSA
in one pork sample, out of 300, according to Jianghong Meng, the
University of Maryland scholar who conducted the study.
Regardless of whether the bacteria came from the pigs or from humans who
handled the meat, the results should sound an alarm bell, for MRSA
already kills more than 18,000 Americans annually, more than AIDS does.
MRSA (pronounced ³mersa²) stands for methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus. People often get it from hospitals, but as I
wrote in my last column, a new strain called ST398 is emerging and seems
to find a reservoir in modern hog farms. Research by Peter Davies of the
University of Minnesota suggests that 25 percent to 39 percent of
American hogs carry MRSA.
Public health experts worry that pigs could pass on the infection by
direct contact with their handlers, through their wastes leaking into
ground water (one study has already found antibiotic-resistant bacteria
entering ground water from hog farms), or through their meat, though
there has been no proven case of someone getting it from eating pork.
Thorough cooking will kill the bacteria, but people often use the same
knife to cut raw meat and then to chop vegetables. Or they plop a pork
chop on a plate, cook it and then contaminate it by putting it back on
the original plate.
Yet the central problem here isnıt pigs, itıs humans. Unlike Europe and
even South Korea, the United States still bows to agribusiness interests
by permitting the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in animal feed.
Thatıs unconscionable.
The peer-reviewed Medical Clinics of North America concluded last year
that antibiotics in livestock feed were ³a major component² in the rise
in antibiotic resistance. The article said that more antibiotics were
fed to animals in North Carolina alone than were administered to the
nationıs entire human population.
³We donıt give antibiotics to healthy humans,² said Robert Martin, who
led a Pew Commission on industrial farming that examined antibiotic use.
³So why give them to healthy animals just so we can keep them in crowded
and unsanitary conditions?²
The answer is simple: politics.
Legislation to ban the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in agriculture
has always been blocked by agribusiness interests. Louise Slaughter of
New York, who is the sole microbiologist in the House of
Representatives, said she planned to reintroduce the legislation this
coming week.
³Weıre losing the ability to treat humans,² she said. ³We have misused
one of the best scientific products weıve had.²
Thatıs an almost universal view in the public health world. The
Infectious Diseases Society of America has declared antibiotic
resistance a ³public health crisis² and recounts the story of Rebecca
Lohsen, a 17-year-old New Jersey girl who died from MRSA in 2006. She
came down with what she thought was a sore throat, endured months in the
hospital, and finally died because the microbes were stronger than the
drugs.
This will be an important test for President Obama and his agriculture
secretary, Tom Vilsack. Traditionally, the Agriculture Department has
functioned mostly as a protector of agribusiness interests, but Mr.
Obama and Mr. Vilsack have both said all the right things about looking
after eaters as well as producers.
So Mr. Obama and Mr. Vilsack, will you line up to curb the use of
antibiotics in raising American livestock? That is evidence of an
industrial farming system that is broken: for the sake of faster-growing
hogs, weıre empowering microbes that endanger our food supply and
threaten our lives.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Privacy Policy Search Corrections RSS First Look Help Contact Us
Work for Us Site Map
http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/200...livestock-feed
/?apage=2
MARCH 14, 2009, 10:00 PM
Antibiotics in livestock feed
By NICHOLAS KRISTOF
My Sunday column looks at the way weıre destroying the efficacy of
antibiotics by using them as a routine, non-therapeutic supplement to
livestock feed. Thereıs lots to read on the subject for those who are
interested. A brand-new book by Nicolette Hahn Niman, ³Righteous Pork
Chop,² looks at the broad issues involving industrial hog farms and
the alternatives. Itıs a good read. Many of the journal articles on this
topic are available only by subscription, but the Save Antibiotics
website has a compendium of material, as does Keep Antibiotics Working.
This article argues that animal use of antibiotics may have more impact
on resistance than hospital use. The author, Glenn Morris, head of the
Emerging Pathogens Institute of University of Florida, was very helpful
in my reporting, as was Dr. David Wallinga of IATP, but I ran out of
space and had to cut their quotes.
One caveat is that a ban on non-therapeutic use may lead to an increase
in therapeutic use of antibiotics. There is some evidence that that
happened in Denmark, limiting the benefit of a ban. Other accounts, such
as a study from the World Health Organization, suggest that the Danish
ban worked very well. I couldnıt reconcile the competing studies.
I also want to emphasize that thereıs a great deal we donıt know. Partly
thatıs because the public health system in the U.S. is in wretched shape
all resources are going for CAT scans, rather than for public health
surveillance. Iım interested in writing more about food issues in
general, so ideas are most welcome. (Iım closing comments here because
theyıll be allowed beside the column itself.) UPDATE: Iım opening
comments here, because theyıve been closed by the column.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Privacy Policy
NYTimes.com 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018
--------
http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/200...mrsa-by-readin
g-about-it/
You canıt catch MRSA by reading about it
By NICHOLAS KRISTOF
as far as we know. But one of the journalistic challenges here is that
we donıt know a lot about MRSA, and so the challenge in my Thursday
column was how to raise public concern about a legitimate public health
issue without becoming alarmist and exaggerating the danger. Itıs a very
fine line, especially when we journalists tackle issues in science or
public health, and I trust youıll let me know if you think I tumbled off
this tightrope.
As I suggested in the column, Iıll come back to the issue of antibiotics
being fed to livestock in Sundayıs column. Iıve also offered links in
the web version, and so those who want more information can read some of
the studies there. Iıd also suggest the Save Antibiotics website:
http://www.saveantibiotics.org/
for information focusing on the overuse of antibiotics. A counter view,
defending the hog industry in particular, is found at the website of the
National Pork Producers Council.
http://www.nppc.org/
---------
March 12, 2009
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Our Pigs, Our Food, Our Health
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
CAMDEN, Ind.
The late Tom Anderson, the family doctor in this little farm town in
northwestern Indiana, at first was puzzled, then frightened.
He began seeing strange rashes on his patients, starting more than a
year ago. They began as innocuous bumps ³pimples from hell,² he called
them and quickly became lesions as big as saucers, fiery red and
agonizing to touch.
They could be anywhere, but were most common on the face, armpits, knees
and buttocks. Dr. Anderson took cultures and sent them off to a lab,
which reported that they were MRSA, or staph infections that are
resistant to antibiotics.
MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) sometimes arouses
terrifying headlines as a ³superbug² or ³flesh-eating bacteria.² The
best-known strain is found in hospitals, where it has been seen
regularly since the 1990s, but more recently different strains also have
been passed among high school and college athletes. The federal Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention reported that by 2005, MRSA was
killing more than 18,000 Americans a year, more than AIDS.
Dr. Anderson at first couldnıt 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?
³Tom was very concerned with what he was seeing,² recalls his widow,
Cindi Anderson. ³Tom said he felt the MRSA was at phenomenal levels.²
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.
There was no autopsy, but a blood test suggested a heart attack or
aneurysm. Dr. Anderson had himself suffered at least three bouts of
MRSA, and a Dutch journal has linked swine-carried MRSA to dangerous
human heart inflammation.
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.
A few caveats: The uncertainties are huge, partly because our
surveillance system is wretched (the cases here in Camden were never
reported to the health authorities). The vast majority of pork is safe,
and there is no proven case of transmission of MRSA from eating pork.
Iıll still offer my kids B.L.T.ıs but Iıll scrub my hands carefully
after handling raw pork.
Let me also be very clear that Iım not against hog farmers. I grew up on
a farm outside Yamhill, Ore., and was a state officer of the Future
Farmers of America; we raised pigs for a time, including a sow named
Brunhilda with such a strong personality that I remember her better than
some of my high school dates.
One of the first clues that pigs could infect people with MRSA came in
the Netherlands in 2004, when a young woman tested positive for a new
strain of MRSA, called ST398. The family lived on a farm, so public
health authorities swept in and found that three family members, three
co-workers and 8 of 10 pigs tested all carried MRSA.
Since then, that strain of MRSA has spread rapidly through the
Netherlands especially in swine-producing areas. A small Dutch study
found pig farmers there were 760 times more likely than the general
population to carry MRSA (without necessarily showing symptoms), and
Scientific American reports that this strain of MRSA has turned up in 12
percent of Dutch retail pork samples.
Now this same strain of MRSA has also been found in the United States. A
new study by Tara Smith, a University of Iowa epidemiologist, found that
45 percent of pig farmers she sampled carried MRSA, as did 49 percent of
the hogs tested.
The study was small, and much more investigation is necessary. Yet it
might shed light on the surge in rashes in the now vacant doctorıs
office here in Camden. Linda Barnard, who was Dr. Andersonıs assistant,
thinks that perhaps 50 people came in to be treated for MRSA, in a town
with a population of a bit more than 500. Indeed, during my visit, Dr.
Andersonıs 13-year-old daughter, Lily, showed me a MRSA rash inflaming
her knee.
³Iıve had it many times,² she said.
So whatıs 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 ³superbugs² that pose a public health threat to
us all. Thatıll be the focus of my next column, on Sunday.
I invite you to visit my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on
Facebook, watch my YouTube videos and follow me on Twitter.
Gail Collins is off today.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Privacy Policy Search Corrections RSS First Look Help Contact Us
Work for Us Site Map
---------
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/29/the_nafta_flu
The ³NAFTA Flu²: Critics Say Swine Flu Has Roots in Forcing Poor
Countries to Accept Western Agribusiness
As the US reports its first known death from the global swine flu, the
World Health Organization has raised its pandemic threat level. Several
countries around the world have banned the import of US and Mexican pork
products. We speak to professor and author Robert Wallace, who says the
swine flu is partly the outcome of neoliberal policies that forced
poorer countries to open their markets to poorly regulated Western
agribusiness giants. [includes rush transcript]
Guest:
Robert Wallace, Visiting professor in the Department of Geography at the
University of Minnesota and author of the forthcoming book Farming Human
Pathogens: Ecological Resilience and Evolutionary Process. He blogs at
Farming Pathogens.
AMY GOODMAN: As fears of a possible worldwide pandemic of swine flu
continue to grow, the World Health Organization raised its pandemic
threat level Tuesday, and WHO chief Keiji Fukuda said a pandemic was a
³very serious possibility² but still not inevitable.
Mexican health authorities confirmed seven deaths but put the suspected
death toll from swine flu at 159 and said over 2,500 people have been
sickened. New cases have appeared in cities across the United States and
in Australia, Canada, Spain, Israel, Britain and New Zealand. Suspected
cases are being investigated in countries across Europe, Asia and Latin
America.
With sixty-five confirmed cases in the United States, forty-five of
which are in New York, President Obama asked Congress for $1.5 billion
in supplemental funding.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, meanwhile, is
sending a team to Mexico to investigate claims that industrial pig farms
were the source of the outbreak in humans. Several countries around the
world have banned the import of US and Mexican pork products. The pork
industry has raised concerns over the nomenclature of the influenza
strain and is lobbying to call the virus by its scientific name, H1N1.
Iım joined now via Democracy Now! video stream from Minneapolis by
Robert Wallace, who has written extensively about avian influenza. He is
a visiting professor in the Department of Geography at the University of
Minnesota. Heıs author of the forthcoming book Farming Human Pathogens:
Ecological Resilience and Evolutionary Process. He blogs at
farmingpathogens.wordpress.com.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Robert Wallace. Start off by just explaining
what is the swine flu.
ROBERT WALLACE: Well, the swine flu is a influenza. Itıs influenza A
H1N1. The ³H² refers to hemagglutinin molecule. Thatıs a molecule on the
surface of the influenza that allows the virus to key into its target
cell. ³N² refers to neuraminidase. Thatıs the molecule also on the
surface of the influenza, but it allows the influenza, once itıs born,
to key out of the cell that itıs been replicated in. And there are
sixteen different types of H hemagglutinins and nine different types of
neuraminidases. And so, they can recombine in different combinations. We
have in this case H1N1.
That was the pathogen that caused the 1918 pandemic, which killed 50 to
100 million people around the world. Since that time, descendants of
that pandemic strain have become less virulent and become seasonal
influenza that wesome of us are infected with from one winter to the
next.
This H1N1excuse meis entirely different, in the sense of that it does
have H1, and it does have N1, but it also has genes from other
organisms. So itıs not just a human pathogen. It also contains genes
from pigs, genes from birds, as well as genes fromwhen
Iinfluenzagenes from pig influenza, I should be very clear about that,
and genes from bird influenza, as well as genes from human influenza.
And this H1N1 apparently arose in Veracruz and subsequently spread from
there. It spread to states nearby, up to Mexico City, and was able to
get on the international transportation network and make its way across
the world.
AMY GOODMAN: Robert Wallace, youıve called it the ³NAFTA flu.² Why?
ROBERT WALLACE: Well, swine fluin some ways, the pork industry is kind
of correct. ³Swine flu² is a bit a misnomer, but not in the way they
think. Because of the reasons I stated, itıs actually comprised of
influenzas fromthat have typically infected swine, typically infected
birds and humans.
But the problem is, is that puts the onus on the swine as being the
cause for why this kind of influenza has come about, and itıs just that
is simply not the case. The swine are not in the driverıs seat. They are
not in a position to organize themselves into what are now cities of
pigs that stretch around the world.
We really have to go back to the livestock revolution. Before World War
II, poultry and pigs were basically farmed in backyard operations across
this country. So weıre talking about poultry flocks of the size of
seventy chickens. After the World War II, all those independent farming
operations weremany of them were basically put under one roof and
increasingly put under the control of particular corporationsHolly
Farms, Tyson, Perdue. And the geography of the poultry and pork change.
So, while previously pork and poultry were grown across the country, it
was now grown, or theyıre now raised within only a few southeastern
states here in the United States. After the livestock revolution,
poultry and pigs were now being grown and raised in much larger
populations, so we go from seventy poultry now up to populations of
30,000 at a time. So we have cities of pigs and poultry.
That model was subsequently spread around the world. So, starting in the
1970s, the livestock revolution was brought to East Asia. You have the
CP Group, which is now the fourthworldıs fourth-largest poultry
company, in Thailand. That company subsequently brought the livestock
revolution into China once China opened up its doors in 1980. So we have
cities of poultry and pork developing around the world.
And this phenomenon goes hand in hand with the very structural
adjustment programs that the IMF and the World Bank helped institute
during this time. So if youıre a poor country, youıre having financial
difficulties, in order to get some money to bail you out, you had to go
to the International Monetary Fund for a loan. And in return, the IMF
would make demands on you to change your economy in such a way that
would allow youwill force you to open up your economy to outside
corporations, including agricultural companies. And, of course, that
would have a detrimental effect on domestic agriculture. So, small
companies within poor countries could not out-compete large
agribusinesses from the North that are subsidized by the industrial
governments. So theyıre not able to compete with them, so thereısthey
either must contract their labor and land to the companies, foreign
companies that are coming into their country, or they basically retire
out of the business and sell their land to the large companies that are
coming in. So, in other words, the spread of the cities of pork and
poultry go hand in hand with this structural adjustment program.
And, of course, NAFTA is our local version of that. The North American
Free Trade Agreement was signed in 1993, instituted in 1994, and has had
a subsequent effect on how poultry and pigs are raised in Mexico. So,
from that time, the pattern I just described, the small farmers had to
either bulk up, in terms of acquiring the farms around them, acquiring
the pigs around them, or had to sell out to agribusinesses that were
coming in. So the Smithfield subsidiary that is now being accused of
being the possible plant of origin for this H1N1 is a subsidiary of an
outside corporation.
AMY GOODMAN: And what do you see, Robert Wallace, finally, about the
significance of the World Health Organization saying that the global
swine flu pandemic is a very serious possibility? And what needs to be
done right now?
ROBERT WALLACE: Well, I mean, it is a serious possibility. I mean, there
is no doubt that it can very well threaten into becoming a pandemic.
Itıs well on its way. In my mind, the train has left the station. The
question now is whether or not itıs going to be dangerous to the point
that it develops the virulence of the 1918 pandemic. That is still very
much an open question.
One of the things we must keep in mind is that even if it is not
currently killing a lot of people at this pointand we should be
thankful thatıs the caseit could still evolve a greater virulence over
time. The 1918 pandemic was characterized by an outbreak in the spring
and then subsequently followed by a much more deadly outbreak in the
following fall. So we really have to keep an eye on how this thing
evolves. And itıs very much a changing situation, as we can see from
this past week, a changing situation from day to day.
AMY GOODMAN: Robert Wallace, I want to thank you for being with us,
joining us by Democracy Now! video stream from Minneapolis. His
forthcoming book is called Farming Human Pathogens. Weıll link to his
blog* at democracynow.org.
*
http://farmingpathogens.wordpress.com/
-------
"It is believed that cytokine storms were responsible for many of the
deaths during the 1918 influenza pandemic, which killed a
disproportionate number of young adults.[1] In this case, a healthy
immune system may have been a liability rather than an asset.
Preliminary research results from Hong Kong also indicated this as the
probable reason for many deaths during the SARS epidemic in
2003.[citation needed] Human deaths from the bird flu H5N1 usually
involve cytokine storms as well.[citation needed] Recent reports of
high mortality among healthy young adults in the 2009 swine flu
outbreak point to cytokine storms as being responsible for these
deaths.[4]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_storm
Definitly see:
http://www.the-health-gazette.com/he...native-medicin
e/natural-antivirals
http://www.biojobblog.com/2009/03/ar...methicillin-re
sistant-staphylococcus-aureus-a-growing-link-between-mrsa-infections-and-
pigs/
Bon appétit
--
- Billy
"For the first time in the history of the world, every human being
is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the
moment of conception until death." - Rachel Carson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI29wVQN8Go
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1072040.html