[mike777]

"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. That’ll be the focus of my next column, on Sunday.



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."






http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/opinion/...istof.html?_r=1

[y66]

Quote

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that by 2005, MRSA was killing more than 18,000 Americans a year, more than AIDS.

I'm not a big pork eater -- I just don't dig on swine, that's all -- but yeah, this is scary stuff. Of course, so are so many of our national attitudes and policies regarding food, health and farming.