New MRSA Superbug Strain Found in UK Milk Supply
December 27th, 201280% were reserved for livestock and poultry:
In fact, according to new data just released by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), of the antibiotics sold in 2009 for both people and food animals almost 80% were reserved for livestock and poultry. A huge portion of those antibiotics were never intended to fight bacterial infections, rather producers most likely administered them in continuous low-dosages through feed or water to increase the speed at which their animals grew.
Via: Independent:
A new strain of MRSA has been found in British milk, indicating that the superbug is spreading through the livestock population and poses a growing threat to human health.
The new strain, MRSA ST398, has been identified in seven samples of bulk milk from five different farms in England.
The discovery, from tests on 1,500 samples, indicates that antibiotic-resistant organisms are gaining an increasing hold in the dairy industry.
The disclosure comes amid growing concern over the use of modern antibiotics on British farms, driven by price pressure imposed by the big supermarket chains. Intensive farming with thousands of animals raised in cramped conditions means infections spread faster and the need for antibiotics is consequently greater.
Three classes of antibiotics rated as “critically important to human medicine” by the World Health Organisation – cephalosporins, fluoroquinolones and macrolides – have increased in use in the animal population by eightfold in the last decade.
The more antibiotics are used, the greater the likelihood that antibiotic-resistant bacteria, such as MRSA, will evolve.
Experts say there is no risk of MRSA infection to consumers of milk or dairy products so long as the milk is pasteurised. The risk comes from farmworkers, vets and abattoir workers, who may become infected through contact with livestock and transmit the bug to others.
The discovery was made by scientists from Cambridge University who first identified MRSA in milk in 2011. They say the latest finding of a different strain is worrying.
Research Credit: luky
4 July 2001 | Nature |
Bacteria miss their medicine
Danish bans on animal feed antibiotics clears up bacterialresistance.
The number of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in Danish chickens and pigs has decreased dramatically since Denmark began to remove antibiotics from animal feed, according to a new report1. This is the first large-scale evidence that eliminating agricultural antibiotics may reverse the rise of resistant bacteria in livestock.
Denmark’s poultry and pig production has also increased since 1995, when the drugs were first banned. Antibiotics are routinely added to animal feed worldwide to promote animal growth.
In Danish broiler chickens, the resistance of the gut bacterium Enterococcus faecium to the animal antibiotic avoparcin was 6% last year, compared with 73% in 1995, when the drug was banned, say Frank Møller Aarestrup and his colleagues at the Danish Veterinary Laboratory in Copenhagen. Resistance to virginiamycin, banned in 1998, halved between 1997 and 2000.
In pigs, resistance of Enterococcus faecalis to the antibiotic tylosin fell from 94% in 1995 to 28% in 2000; its use has been greatly reduced since 1997…
http://www.nature.com/news/2001/010704/full/news010705-9.html