Industrial Pig Farms Breeding MRSA
March 13th, 2009Via: New York Times:
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 — “pimples from hell,” 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 “superbug” or “flesh-eating bacteria.” 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 couldn’t 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?
“Tom was very concerned with what he was seeing,” recalls his widow, Cindi Anderson. “Tom said he felt the MRSA was at phenomenal levels.”
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.
…
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.
Research Credit: ottilie
Given this: “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.”
I was surprised not to see this categorized under assassination. People have been killed for less than pissing off a huge industrial concern before.
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.
But, yes, it is an interesting Coincidence that he died as he was about to go into whistleblower mode.
Yeah, we’ll never know (we never do), but, as you know, inducing a heart attack is not rocket science, and with all those “reasonable causes” already there, it would be easy to get away with. Especially with the lack of an autopsy. But God forbid the Times use the word “conspiracy” as anything but a punchline.
I don’t know. I can go both ways on this one. On the one hand, if the Doc survived MRSA 3 times (honestly that guy had to had a body of steel) odds are he didn’t die of natural causes. But on the other hand, my Mom, cheez, she’s had MRSA twice. The first time she had MRSA was when she first had her stroke and all I remember is that she got it from being on a ventilator. Folks there at the hospital suction all the time and get well, lets say careless, when it doesn[‘t look good for the patient.
I have no idea how Mom got it the second time, but it was in hospital, again. Mom was there for pneumonia, and contracted MRSA again ( a respiratrory therapist told me it never really goes away). The hospital gave her Vancomycin to “cure” the MRSA. Mom went into renal failure – or was just about there. I called my friend, her doctor from the rehab hospital, and he has been up at arms in that he believes the Vanco is a killer. He told me he asks doctors at the hospital, “knowing what you know about this drug, would you give it to your parent?” Zounds.
He told me to ask the hospital to give Mom Zyvox (sp). They did, but the doctor, bless her heart, had to write a justification re the cost.
In any case, the fact that Mom once had MRSA entitled us to a private room, no matter what was going on. Now the hospital we go to examines anyone who “checks” in for MRSA.
I’m glad Mom doesn’t have MRSA anymore, but darn. There goes our private room.
Medicaire will no longer pay for patients who contract MRSA, CDIF, or bed sores from being in hospital. And the hospital can’t go after the patient for the costs either. HAH.
Too Bad for Mom. She’s had them all and I am very glad Mom is still here. Blows my mind every time I am with her. Can’t figure how she has survived her life so far, but I think it may be in some small part, to teach me and the rest of our small world lots of things about old age, the medical “world,” etc. Just keep yourself away from the hospital, if you can.
And after writing all of the above, hmpf. If that Doctor survived it three times, well, sure, we can always link a death to a hypothesis that it inflames the heart. But this reminds me of the guy who wrapped himself in duct tape and then jumped in the water and committed suicide.
Killing a human being for BACON? Humans are really STRANGE animals.