.
Had the question been worded slightly differently, they would have been forced to admit that MRSA st398 has been found in Scotland in children a couple of years ago and was covered up for 6 months. They went so far as to say they could find no connection with pigs, when they did own up.
Another wording would have produced the answer that st398 had been found in England in unspecified livestock more than five years ago. Presumably, Defra do know the difference between poultry, pigs and cattle, but do not want to tell us.
So, our hospitals still have not introduced the eminently sensible and proven precautions adopted by the Dutch more than five years ago, when they bravely flew to the USA and told the world that their pigs were carrying MRSA and that veterinarians, pig and pork workers were a danger to themselves, their families and their hospitals.
It isn't complicated - and it is the worst scandal for many years. It will break over the heads of those that conspired to keep it secret.
http://http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200910/ldhansrd/text/91202w0002.htm
Question
Asked by Lord Hylton
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of any connection between animal and human strains of MRSA; and whether they will consider the experience of the Netherlands in that matter. [HL360]
Baroness Thornton: The majority of meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections are due to healthcare-associated strains. However, given experience in the Netherlands and elsewhere the Health Protection Agency asks diagnostic laboratories to send it unusual isolates from people with a farming association for further investigation. No cases of the pig-related strain ST398 have been reported in England. The Advisory Committee on Antimicrobial Resistance and Healthcare Associated Infections continue to keep developments in relation to human and animal strains of MRSA under review.
Thursday, 3 December 2009
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
MRSA - Weasel words on British pigs
'Evidence does not suggest that the presence of MRSA in pig herds is a public health risk.'
They must hold the people of Britain in total contempt. MRSA has been hidden up by Britain's corrupt government veterinarians for at least five years.
It will not be long before they are stripped of Crown immunity and before the Courts.
Pig MRSA widespread in Europe
The Ecologist
25th November, 2009
Calls for national testing in UK pig herd after survey finds superbug to be prevalent throughout Europe
MRSA has been found in pig herds in more than two-thirds of countries within the European Union (EU), new research shows.
In the first EU-wide survey, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) found the antibiotic-resistant bug in 17 out of 24 member states.
Spain and Germany had the highest incidence, with over 40 per cent of pig holdings testing positive for MRSA.
The most common MRSA strain found is considered by EFSA to be 'an occupational health risk for farmers, veterinarians and their families'. It causes skin infections, pneumonia and bone infections.
National test
Whilst the survey did not find any evidence of MRSA in UK pig holdings, the Soil Association has warned that MRSA could still be present in British pigs and that the test used was inadequate.
Another country declared MRSA-free by the survey, Switzerland, did detect the bacteria through its own national testing.
The Soil Association is calling for the UK to carry out its own national survey of bacterial infections in pigs.
'MRSA testing is simple and relatively inexpensive and there can be no excuse for not introducing a comprehensive UK testing program in pigs, poultry, cattle and horses, based on the tried and tested use of nasal swabs,' said Soil Association Policy Adviser Richard Young.
A spokesperson for Defra said:
'Evidence does not suggest that the presence of MRSA in pig herds is a public health risk.'
--
Regards
Pat Gardiner
Release and independently audit the results of testing British pigs
for MRSA and C.Diff now!
http://www.go-self-sufficient.com/ and http://animal-epidemics.blogspot.com/
Saturday, 7 November 2009
Circovirus reaches British, Dutch and German cattle
.
It seems that a further disaster has been visited upon us.
The circovirus epidemics ravaging pig herds for the past decade seem to have spread to cattle.
Circovirus - thoroughly underestimated and covered up by Britain's
corrupt government veterinarians.
http://www.vetsweb.com/news/germany-cause-of-blood-sweating-in-calves-still-obscure-610.html
Germany: cause of blood sweating in calves still obscure
//05 Nov 2009
German researchers investigated 52 calves from 42 farms in Germany, which suffered from a haemorrhagic disease with unknown cause. Similar cases appeared recently in the Netherlands, Scotland, England, and Wales where is spoken of fatal bleeding calf syndrome ...
...Using a broad-spectrum PCR, a circovirus with high similarities to porcine circovirus type 2b (PCV2b), was detected in several of the affected calves.
Conclusion
The distinct cause of the disease still remains unknown. Potentially, the pathogenesis is complex and includes components such as infection, hereditary disposition, and immune- mediated destruction of blood cell precursors.
Further investigations are necessary to clarify the role of PCV2.
Source
Proceedings of the 27th meeting of the European Society of Veterinary Pathology, Krakow, Poland, 9-12 Sep 2009 (pdf)
Abstract title: Fatal aplastic anaemia with haemorrhagic disease in calves in Germany. EC Kappe et. al.
It seems that a further disaster has been visited upon us.
The circovirus epidemics ravaging pig herds for the past decade seem to have spread to cattle.
Circovirus - thoroughly underestimated and covered up by Britain's
corrupt government veterinarians.
http://www.vetsweb.com/news/germany-cause-of-blood-sweating-in-calves-still-obscure-610.html
Germany: cause of blood sweating in calves still obscure
//05 Nov 2009
German researchers investigated 52 calves from 42 farms in Germany, which suffered from a haemorrhagic disease with unknown cause. Similar cases appeared recently in the Netherlands, Scotland, England, and Wales where is spoken of fatal bleeding calf syndrome ...
...Using a broad-spectrum PCR, a circovirus with high similarities to porcine circovirus type 2b (PCV2b), was detected in several of the affected calves.
Conclusion
The distinct cause of the disease still remains unknown. Potentially, the pathogenesis is complex and includes components such as infection, hereditary disposition, and immune- mediated destruction of blood cell precursors.
Further investigations are necessary to clarify the role of PCV2.
Source
Proceedings of the 27th meeting of the European Society of Veterinary Pathology, Krakow, Poland, 9-12 Sep 2009 (pdf)
Abstract title: Fatal aplastic anaemia with haemorrhagic disease in calves in Germany. EC Kappe et. al.
Thursday, 24 September 2009
MRSA spread less in Denmark than the Netherlands
.
Pat's Note: Speaks for itself really.
This is a Dutch veterinary site reporting on the Dutch Parliament. Their breathtaking honesty and integrity will help them weather the coming storm.
They will have plenty to say when Britain's bent government vets are finally forced to admit that Britain's pigs have MRSA and that MRSA in Britain has been covered up for more then 5 years.
http://www.vetsweb.com/news/denmark-less-mrsa-spread-than-the-netherlands-481.html
Denmark: Less MRSA spread than the Netherlands//24 Sep 2009
Denmark has so far experienced considerably less spread of theMethylicin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus bacteria (MRSA) than theNetherlands. This could be related to the different situations in both country's livestock industries.
This became clear in Dutch Parliament this week when Dutch agricultural minister Gerda Verburg answered questions related toMRSA.
Hospital bacteria
The MRSA bacteria usually strikes in weaker people in hospitals, hence its nickname 'the hospital bacteria'. The same bacteria has been found to exist in pig and other livestock farms around the globe, but the exact relationship with farms and the bacteria in humans is still researched.
Verburg stated that Danish farms use less antibiotics in animal production. In addition, there are more farms having a SpecificPathogen Free (SPF) status. She claimed that it is difficult to quantify the role of these factors as specific data are missing.
Hygiene status
Verburg said that "it isn't possible to say that in general, the Danish pig industry has a higher hygiene status," as she claims there is no benchmark to prove that. Especially in the Netherlands, authorities and the private sector have implemented a wide range of hygiene measures due to an outbreak of Classical Swine Fever (CSF) inthe 1990s.
Denmark, however, does have a larger amount of closed farms and farms with an SPF status. In addition, the amount of animal transports between farms may be less than in the Netherlands.
Daily doses
Antibiotic use in animal production is lower in Denmark than in the Netherlands. Reports from Wageningen University and Research Centre(2009-2015) showed that the average daily doses of anitbiotics per animal in 2006 and before had been lower in Denmark than in theNetherlands. These figures were based on all animal production sectors. Detailed data per sector have not been available so far.
Pat's Note: Speaks for itself really.
This is a Dutch veterinary site reporting on the Dutch Parliament. Their breathtaking honesty and integrity will help them weather the coming storm.
They will have plenty to say when Britain's bent government vets are finally forced to admit that Britain's pigs have MRSA and that MRSA in Britain has been covered up for more then 5 years.
http://www.vetsweb.com/news/denmark-less-mrsa-spread-than-the-netherlands-481.html
Denmark: Less MRSA spread than the Netherlands//24 Sep 2009
Denmark has so far experienced considerably less spread of theMethylicin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus bacteria (MRSA) than theNetherlands. This could be related to the different situations in both country's livestock industries.
This became clear in Dutch Parliament this week when Dutch agricultural minister Gerda Verburg answered questions related toMRSA.
Hospital bacteria
The MRSA bacteria usually strikes in weaker people in hospitals, hence its nickname 'the hospital bacteria'. The same bacteria has been found to exist in pig and other livestock farms around the globe, but the exact relationship with farms and the bacteria in humans is still researched.
Verburg stated that Danish farms use less antibiotics in animal production. In addition, there are more farms having a SpecificPathogen Free (SPF) status. She claimed that it is difficult to quantify the role of these factors as specific data are missing.
Hygiene status
Verburg said that "it isn't possible to say that in general, the Danish pig industry has a higher hygiene status," as she claims there is no benchmark to prove that. Especially in the Netherlands, authorities and the private sector have implemented a wide range of hygiene measures due to an outbreak of Classical Swine Fever (CSF) inthe 1990s.
Denmark, however, does have a larger amount of closed farms and farms with an SPF status. In addition, the amount of animal transports between farms may be less than in the Netherlands.
Daily doses
Antibiotic use in animal production is lower in Denmark than in the Netherlands. Reports from Wageningen University and Research Centre(2009-2015) showed that the average daily doses of anitbiotics per animal in 2006 and before had been lower in Denmark than in theNetherlands. These figures were based on all animal production sectors. Detailed data per sector have not been available so far.
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
MRSA in pigs risk to hospitals
.
"Our results indicate that livestock represents a relevant reservoir for the import of MRSA into regional German hospitals."
That seems to settle that.
MRSA in pigs and other livestock is a risk to our hospitals.
Britain now has to admit that British pigs do have MRSA and that they have been holding back the bad news.
The NHS has to introduce proper targeted screening and vets have to be banned from prescribing antibiotics, as the Dutch are suggesting.
Then there will be time for a full public enquiry with evidence to be given under oath of exactly has been going on in Defra, Britain's agriculture ministry, for the past ten years and to establish the true origins of the PMWS-MRSA1999, CSF2000 and FMD2000 epidemics.
New Zealand and Australia need to start investigating their situation
In Canada and the USA, things are easier. You already know your pigs have MRSA and this is carried in pork. You now have to protect your hospitals by following the sucessful Dutch screening techniques.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19701815?dopt=Abstract
Eur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis. 2009 Aug 25. [Epub ahead of print]Related Articles, Links Prevalence and molecular characteristics of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) among pigs on German farms and import oflivestock-related MRSA into hospitals.
Köck R, Harlizius J, Bressan N, Laerberg R, Wieler LH, Witte W,Deurenberg RH, Voss A, Becker K, Friedrich AW.
Institute of Hygiene, University Hospital Münster, Robert-Koch-Str.41, 48149, Münster, Germany.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence and molecular characteristics of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)among pigs and estimate the impact of this animal reservoir on human healthcare.
Nasal swabs were derived from 1,600 pigs at 40 German farms. The MRSA were characterized using S. aureus protein A (spa)typing, multilocus sequence typing (MLST) and detection of toxin genes.
In a retrospective case control study, we compared risk factors for the carriage of MRSA between patients carrying spa types found among regional pigs and patients with other MRSA molecular types. Pigs carrying MRSA were identified on 70% of the farms (spa types t011,t034, t108, t1451 and t2510, all associated with MLST sequence type ST398). Contact to pigs and cattle were independent risk factors for the carriage of these spa types in patients at hospital admission.
Our results indicate that livestock represents a relevant reservoir for the import of MRSA into regional German hospitals.
PMID: 19701815 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
"Our results indicate that livestock represents a relevant reservoir for the import of MRSA into regional German hospitals."
That seems to settle that.
MRSA in pigs and other livestock is a risk to our hospitals.
Britain now has to admit that British pigs do have MRSA and that they have been holding back the bad news.
The NHS has to introduce proper targeted screening and vets have to be banned from prescribing antibiotics, as the Dutch are suggesting.
Then there will be time for a full public enquiry with evidence to be given under oath of exactly has been going on in Defra, Britain's agriculture ministry, for the past ten years and to establish the true origins of the PMWS-MRSA1999, CSF2000 and FMD2000 epidemics.
New Zealand and Australia need to start investigating their situation
In Canada and the USA, things are easier. You already know your pigs have MRSA and this is carried in pork. You now have to protect your hospitals by following the sucessful Dutch screening techniques.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19701815?dopt=Abstract
Eur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis. 2009 Aug 25. [Epub ahead of print]Related Articles, Links Prevalence and molecular characteristics of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) among pigs on German farms and import oflivestock-related MRSA into hospitals.
Köck R, Harlizius J, Bressan N, Laerberg R, Wieler LH, Witte W,Deurenberg RH, Voss A, Becker K, Friedrich AW.
Institute of Hygiene, University Hospital Münster, Robert-Koch-Str.41, 48149, Münster, Germany.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence and molecular characteristics of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)among pigs and estimate the impact of this animal reservoir on human healthcare.
Nasal swabs were derived from 1,600 pigs at 40 German farms. The MRSA were characterized using S. aureus protein A (spa)typing, multilocus sequence typing (MLST) and detection of toxin genes.
In a retrospective case control study, we compared risk factors for the carriage of MRSA between patients carrying spa types found among regional pigs and patients with other MRSA molecular types. Pigs carrying MRSA were identified on 70% of the farms (spa types t011,t034, t108, t1451 and t2510, all associated with MLST sequence type ST398). Contact to pigs and cattle were independent risk factors for the carriage of these spa types in patients at hospital admission.
Our results indicate that livestock represents a relevant reservoir for the import of MRSA into regional German hospitals.
PMID: 19701815 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Saturday, 15 August 2009
Superbugs - more than 30,000 British die in five years
.
It's real, it's happening and it does not seem to be so bad on the Continent of Europe
What on earth is Britain doing wrong?
This is no time for a discredited Agriculture Mininstry - Defra to hold back information on MRSA tests on British pigs.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6034988/Death-toll-from-hospital-bugs-hits-new-high.html
Death toll from hospital bugs hits new high
More than 30,000 people have died after contracting the hospital infections MRSA and Clostridium difficile in just five years, officialfigures will show this week. By Laura Donnelly, Health Correspondent Published: 9:00PM BST 15 Aug 2009
Data from the Office for National Statistics covering 2004 to 2008 is expected to show record numbers of deaths linked to the superbugs in England and Wales.
Opposition politicians said the Government had allowed "a horrifying death toll" because of its "slow and sloppy" response to spiralling levels of infection in NHS hospitals.
Official data shows a doubling in the death toll linked to MRSA during the period 2004 to 2007, compared with the previous four years, and a quadrupling in deaths linked to C. diff, when two sets of three-year figures are compared.
Between 2004 and 2007 there were more than 20,000 deaths linked to C.diff and more than 6,000 associated with MRSA.... more
It's real, it's happening and it does not seem to be so bad on the Continent of Europe
What on earth is Britain doing wrong?
This is no time for a discredited Agriculture Mininstry - Defra to hold back information on MRSA tests on British pigs.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6034988/Death-toll-from-hospital-bugs-hits-new-high.html
Death toll from hospital bugs hits new high
More than 30,000 people have died after contracting the hospital infections MRSA and Clostridium difficile in just five years, officialfigures will show this week. By Laura Donnelly, Health Correspondent Published: 9:00PM BST 15 Aug 2009
Data from the Office for National Statistics covering 2004 to 2008 is expected to show record numbers of deaths linked to the superbugs in England and Wales.
Opposition politicians said the Government had allowed "a horrifying death toll" because of its "slow and sloppy" response to spiralling levels of infection in NHS hospitals.
Official data shows a doubling in the death toll linked to MRSA during the period 2004 to 2007, compared with the previous four years, and a quadrupling in deaths linked to C. diff, when two sets of three-year figures are compared.
Between 2004 and 2007 there were more than 20,000 deaths linked to C.diff and more than 6,000 associated with MRSA.... more
Tuesday, 11 August 2009
Dutch Ag Min wants Vet drug sales ban
.
More information on the prospect of a vet antibiotics ban.
If the level of drug sales income is similar in the UK, it is indeed a
matter of concern. We know that the levels of prescription for pigs in
the UK is massive and has been for years, despite Defra's deliberate
fudging of the figures.
You can see the start of the blame game between vets and farmers in
the last sentence.
The vets know they are now in serious trouble and are very anxious to
shift blame to the farmers. You can sense the same thing happening in
the UK.
The writer is with the farmers. The present antibiotic crisis could never have
happened without the full collusion, instigation and approval of the
vets.
They had the education and the qualifications, they made the
prescriptions and the big money. No British farmer dared go against
the advice of his vet. The RSPCA saw to that. Ignoring or not seeking
the advice of a vet apparently equals animal cruelty in the UK.
The government vets regarded the faking of tests and documents as
appropriate conduct and the intimidation of witnesses to Parliament as
part of their brief. Pig farmers told me that they dared not stand up
to Maff-Defra's criminalised veterinary service.
The farmers are left with the problems and handling a British public
that will go nuts when they find out just what has been going on. The
public trusted their vets, but will not allow their reckless practices
to endanger the health of their children.
No amount of "All Creatures Great and Small" is going to help.
As usual the Dutch are to be commended for their integrity in bringing
the problem to the surface and starting to tackle the root causes.
http://www.pigprogress.net/news/dutch-ag-min-wants-vet-drug-sales-ban-3274.html
Dutch Ag Min wants Vet drug sales ban 11 Aug 2009
According to the Royal Dutch Society for Veterinary Science (KNMvD)
20-50% of the income of Dutch veterinarians comes from selling animal
medicines. Dutch Minster for Agriculture Gerda Verburg wants to
investigate whether the sale of animal medicines (antibiotics) by
veterinarians must be banned in the Netherlands.
Antibiotic resistance
According to Verburg, the high antibiotic use in the Dutch livestock
sector may be linked back to the fact that vets earn a lot of money by
selling the antibiotics. Verburg advocates minimising the use of
(therapeutic) antibiotics in the livestock sector because it may
result in antibiotic resistant bacteria in humans.
In-feed antibiotic ban
The ban on antibiotic growth promoters has led to a reduced use of
antibiotics on farms. Antibiotics are now only used as a therapeutic
measure and can only be subscribed by a veterinarian. On average, a
pig in the Netherlands receives 32 doses of antibiotics per year.
Denmark supplies 9 dosses per pig per year. In the Netherlands,
antibiotics are often given to a whole animal group, even when only
one animal in that group is ill.
Farmer's mentality
A ban on the sale of antibiotics by veterinarians is not the only
measure to reduce the antibiotics use in the Dutch livestock sector.
Also farmers need to change their mentality says the KNMvD.
More information on the prospect of a vet antibiotics ban.
If the level of drug sales income is similar in the UK, it is indeed a
matter of concern. We know that the levels of prescription for pigs in
the UK is massive and has been for years, despite Defra's deliberate
fudging of the figures.
You can see the start of the blame game between vets and farmers in
the last sentence.
The vets know they are now in serious trouble and are very anxious to
shift blame to the farmers. You can sense the same thing happening in
the UK.
The writer is with the farmers. The present antibiotic crisis could never have
happened without the full collusion, instigation and approval of the
vets.
They had the education and the qualifications, they made the
prescriptions and the big money. No British farmer dared go against
the advice of his vet. The RSPCA saw to that. Ignoring or not seeking
the advice of a vet apparently equals animal cruelty in the UK.
The government vets regarded the faking of tests and documents as
appropriate conduct and the intimidation of witnesses to Parliament as
part of their brief. Pig farmers told me that they dared not stand up
to Maff-Defra's criminalised veterinary service.
The farmers are left with the problems and handling a British public
that will go nuts when they find out just what has been going on. The
public trusted their vets, but will not allow their reckless practices
to endanger the health of their children.
No amount of "All Creatures Great and Small" is going to help.
As usual the Dutch are to be commended for their integrity in bringing
the problem to the surface and starting to tackle the root causes.
http://www.pigprogress.net/news/dutch-ag-min-wants-vet-drug-sales-ban-3274.html
Dutch Ag Min wants Vet drug sales ban 11 Aug 2009
According to the Royal Dutch Society for Veterinary Science (KNMvD)
20-50% of the income of Dutch veterinarians comes from selling animal
medicines. Dutch Minster for Agriculture Gerda Verburg wants to
investigate whether the sale of animal medicines (antibiotics) by
veterinarians must be banned in the Netherlands.
Antibiotic resistance
According to Verburg, the high antibiotic use in the Dutch livestock
sector may be linked back to the fact that vets earn a lot of money by
selling the antibiotics. Verburg advocates minimising the use of
(therapeutic) antibiotics in the livestock sector because it may
result in antibiotic resistant bacteria in humans.
In-feed antibiotic ban
The ban on antibiotic growth promoters has led to a reduced use of
antibiotics on farms. Antibiotics are now only used as a therapeutic
measure and can only be subscribed by a veterinarian. On average, a
pig in the Netherlands receives 32 doses of antibiotics per year.
Denmark supplies 9 dosses per pig per year. In the Netherlands,
antibiotics are often given to a whole animal group, even when only
one animal in that group is ill.
Farmer's mentality
A ban on the sale of antibiotics by veterinarians is not the only
measure to reduce the antibiotics use in the Dutch livestock sector.
Also farmers need to change their mentality says the KNMvD.
Thursday, 6 August 2009
Dutch admit extent of MRSA in livestock and farmers
This is the world service of Netherlands Radio.
It is not comfortable reading.
It is interesting to see the Dutch government are investigating the
role of vets in the over prescription of antibiotics to livestock.
The Dutch are going to come out of this fiasco relatively well. They
have at least admitted that there is a problem, told the world five
years ago, and are attempting to do something about it.
What a comparison to Britain's shabby veterinary industry!
Still if they can't be bothered to maintain proper ethical standards
they must not expect any sympathy from the rest of us.
http://www.rnw.nl/es/node/16218
The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM)is concerned about the overuse of antibiotics on cattle farms. The medication ultimately causes the hospital superbug MRSA to become resistant.
The RIVM says that some human diseases may become untreatable if the bacteria continue to develop a resistance to antibiotics.
No alternatives
RIVM infection specialist Dr Roel Coutinho told NOS television,
"It's known for a fact that all bacteria ultimately become resistant.
At that point, new antibiotics need to be used, but currently there
are no new antibiotics in the pipeline. Therefore we have to restrain
the use of the current antibiotic medication as much as we can. That's
why Dutch doctors and hospitals follow guidelines on limiting the
application of antibiotics, and that approach works. Compared to other countries, antibiotics prescriptions in the Dutch health care system are relatively modest."
The problem is that the guidelines do not apply to animal breeders on
cattle, pig and chicken farms.
"On cattle farms, the quantity of antibiotics administered to the
animals is ten times that of the human use countrywide. I'm not
convinced that that is really necessary, and I think we should do the
utmost to reduce the use," Dr Coutinho added.
Some 80 percent of cattle breeding farms and half the Dutch chicken
farms have been infected with a strain of MRSA, the institute says. In
2008, there were over 1100 reports of infection, 400 more than in
2007.
Measures
Chairman Wyno Zwanenburg of the Dutch Pig Breeders' Union explained to NOS that pig farmers have made considerable advances in reducing the use of antibiotics. He pointed out that pigs are living in groups, necessitating group treatment, even if only a single animal has been infected.
One third of all cattle farmers are infected with MRSA, but the
bacteria is only dangerous for people who are susceptible because of
other illnesses or general ill health.
In an attempt to curb the use of antibiotics on farms, Agriculture
Minister Tineke Verburg has ordered an investigation into the role of
veterinary doctors. Vets generally act as their own dispensing
chemists, selling the antibiotics to farmers. The vets' umbrella
organisation agrees that the use of antibiotics in cattle farms should
be brought down, but adds that there are usually medical arguments in favour of their use.
It is not comfortable reading.
It is interesting to see the Dutch government are investigating the
role of vets in the over prescription of antibiotics to livestock.
The Dutch are going to come out of this fiasco relatively well. They
have at least admitted that there is a problem, told the world five
years ago, and are attempting to do something about it.
What a comparison to Britain's shabby veterinary industry!
Still if they can't be bothered to maintain proper ethical standards
they must not expect any sympathy from the rest of us.
http://www.rnw.nl/es/node/16218
The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM)is concerned about the overuse of antibiotics on cattle farms. The medication ultimately causes the hospital superbug MRSA to become resistant.
The RIVM says that some human diseases may become untreatable if the bacteria continue to develop a resistance to antibiotics.
No alternatives
RIVM infection specialist Dr Roel Coutinho told NOS television,
"It's known for a fact that all bacteria ultimately become resistant.
At that point, new antibiotics need to be used, but currently there
are no new antibiotics in the pipeline. Therefore we have to restrain
the use of the current antibiotic medication as much as we can. That's
why Dutch doctors and hospitals follow guidelines on limiting the
application of antibiotics, and that approach works. Compared to other countries, antibiotics prescriptions in the Dutch health care system are relatively modest."
The problem is that the guidelines do not apply to animal breeders on
cattle, pig and chicken farms.
"On cattle farms, the quantity of antibiotics administered to the
animals is ten times that of the human use countrywide. I'm not
convinced that that is really necessary, and I think we should do the
utmost to reduce the use," Dr Coutinho added.
Some 80 percent of cattle breeding farms and half the Dutch chicken
farms have been infected with a strain of MRSA, the institute says. In
2008, there were over 1100 reports of infection, 400 more than in
2007.
Measures
Chairman Wyno Zwanenburg of the Dutch Pig Breeders' Union explained to NOS that pig farmers have made considerable advances in reducing the use of antibiotics. He pointed out that pigs are living in groups, necessitating group treatment, even if only a single animal has been infected.
One third of all cattle farmers are infected with MRSA, but the
bacteria is only dangerous for people who are susceptible because of
other illnesses or general ill health.
In an attempt to curb the use of antibiotics on farms, Agriculture
Minister Tineke Verburg has ordered an investigation into the role of
veterinary doctors. Vets generally act as their own dispensing
chemists, selling the antibiotics to farmers. The vets' umbrella
organisation agrees that the use of antibiotics in cattle farms should
be brought down, but adds that there are usually medical arguments in favour of their use.
Tuesday, 21 July 2009
Swine Flu - Canadians caught out again
Pat’s Note: It is clear that the Canadian authorities have been caught again hiding vital information from the public gaze to protect their disease riddled pig industry and incompetent public servants.
Their pigs have Swine Flu and it has spread into people and they have been hiding it up for months.
That is the real story. They have known since early May.
We now know that their pigs have been seriously sick with circovirus since the mid 1990s and probably were the source of the British outbreaks in 1999.
The real story behind Britain’s infamous Swine Fever and Foot and Mouth outbreaks is unraveling on the Prairies.
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/07/20/swine-flu-inspectors-improper-gear-virus-calgary.html
Swine-flu inspectors wearing improper gear caught virus
Some staff wore ill-fitting respirators borrowed from firehall
Last Updated: Monday, July 20, 2009 | 8:45 PM ET
CBC News
Two CFIA staffers got sick a day after taking nasal and blood samples from pigs in a barn on this central Alberta farm. (CBC)
Federal government inspectors did not take proper precautions when investigating a swine-flu outbreak on a central Alberta pig farm, says a report obtained by CBC News.
Two workers for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) subsequently got sick with the H1N1 virus, according to a report by Alberta Health Services.
The pair took nasal and blood samples from pigs on a farm near Rocky Mountain House for two hours on the night of April 28. The workers wore protective gear, but the report said they did not have the right equipment and were not shown proper procedures.
The full-face respirators available to them had not been fitted properly, and also fogged up their masks, making work difficult inside the hot barn.
'We acknowledge that in this particular case, all the proper protocols and procedures in place were not fully observed.'—Dr. Jim Clark, Canadian Food Inspection Agency
The two workers were not taught how to best put on or remove their coveralls, disposable shoe covers, double gloves or full-face respirator.
"They stated that they lifted their mask inside the barn to allow the sweat to drip down. They doffed their equipment without assistance, and the face mask was the first piece of equipment to be removed. Showers were not available on site," said the internal report.
The day after their work in the barn, the workers developed sore throats, followed by symptoms of cough, fatigue, sweats, and headache. Test results on May 7 confirmed the pair had contracted H1N1.
"We acknowledge that in this particular case, all the proper protocols and procedures in place were not fully observed," Dr. Jim Clark, national manager for disease control for CFIA's animal health division, told CBC News on Monday.
New procedures implemented
The report noted that once swine flu was confirmed in the herd, staff were given a full presentation by Health Canada on May 8 — 10 days after the two original staffers worked in the barn.
The procedures implemented after they got ill included:
• Properly fitted and sized full-face respirators with N95 filters.
• Eye protection with seals around the eyes.
• A trained staff member to assist with putting on, taking off gear.
• A maximum of two three-hour shifts to reduce fatigue, buildup of sweat.
It was also recommended that staffers get the seasonal flu vaccine as well as prescribed antivirals for those in contact with swine.
The report dated July 2 was based on interviews with 14 staff directly involved in the swine-flu outbreak investigation at the farm from April 28 to May 26.
They said prior to the change in procedures, three of the staff were using ill-fitting respirators borrowed from a firehall.
Staff noted that potentially exposed workers continued to work after exposure, possibly infecting other humans or animals, said the six-page report. They were also concerned they were not informed when their co-workers contracted H1N1.
Pigs culled on farm
Alberta Health Services, which commissioned the report to study effective protective strategies and to examine how to reduce the risk of infection to workers, did not fulfil requests by CBC News for an interview.
About 500 pigs were culled on a central Alberta farm near Rocky Mountain House in May. (CBC)
Clark said he was unaware of the AHS report until contacted by CBC News. He said the CFIA is conducting an internal investigation and is making changes to avoid a similar situation in the future.
About 500 hogs were culled on the Alberta pig farm on May 8, because the animals could not be sold. The animals had been under quarantine since April 28.
Swine flu is transmitted from animal to human mainly on pig farms where farmers and workers are in close contact with live pigs. The virus cannot be contracted through eating pork.
The spread of swine flu from human to human happens in the same way as seasonal flu, through coughing or sneezing.
Their pigs have Swine Flu and it has spread into people and they have been hiding it up for months.
That is the real story. They have known since early May.
We now know that their pigs have been seriously sick with circovirus since the mid 1990s and probably were the source of the British outbreaks in 1999.
The real story behind Britain’s infamous Swine Fever and Foot and Mouth outbreaks is unraveling on the Prairies.
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/07/20/swine-flu-inspectors-improper-gear-virus-calgary.html
Swine-flu inspectors wearing improper gear caught virus
Some staff wore ill-fitting respirators borrowed from firehall
Last Updated: Monday, July 20, 2009 | 8:45 PM ET
CBC News
Two CFIA staffers got sick a day after taking nasal and blood samples from pigs in a barn on this central Alberta farm. (CBC)
Federal government inspectors did not take proper precautions when investigating a swine-flu outbreak on a central Alberta pig farm, says a report obtained by CBC News.
Two workers for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) subsequently got sick with the H1N1 virus, according to a report by Alberta Health Services.
The pair took nasal and blood samples from pigs on a farm near Rocky Mountain House for two hours on the night of April 28. The workers wore protective gear, but the report said they did not have the right equipment and were not shown proper procedures.
The full-face respirators available to them had not been fitted properly, and also fogged up their masks, making work difficult inside the hot barn.
'We acknowledge that in this particular case, all the proper protocols and procedures in place were not fully observed.'—Dr. Jim Clark, Canadian Food Inspection Agency
The two workers were not taught how to best put on or remove their coveralls, disposable shoe covers, double gloves or full-face respirator.
"They stated that they lifted their mask inside the barn to allow the sweat to drip down. They doffed their equipment without assistance, and the face mask was the first piece of equipment to be removed. Showers were not available on site," said the internal report.
The day after their work in the barn, the workers developed sore throats, followed by symptoms of cough, fatigue, sweats, and headache. Test results on May 7 confirmed the pair had contracted H1N1.
"We acknowledge that in this particular case, all the proper protocols and procedures in place were not fully observed," Dr. Jim Clark, national manager for disease control for CFIA's animal health division, told CBC News on Monday.
New procedures implemented
The report noted that once swine flu was confirmed in the herd, staff were given a full presentation by Health Canada on May 8 — 10 days after the two original staffers worked in the barn.
The procedures implemented after they got ill included:
• Properly fitted and sized full-face respirators with N95 filters.
• Eye protection with seals around the eyes.
• A trained staff member to assist with putting on, taking off gear.
• A maximum of two three-hour shifts to reduce fatigue, buildup of sweat.
It was also recommended that staffers get the seasonal flu vaccine as well as prescribed antivirals for those in contact with swine.
The report dated July 2 was based on interviews with 14 staff directly involved in the swine-flu outbreak investigation at the farm from April 28 to May 26.
They said prior to the change in procedures, three of the staff were using ill-fitting respirators borrowed from a firehall.
Staff noted that potentially exposed workers continued to work after exposure, possibly infecting other humans or animals, said the six-page report. They were also concerned they were not informed when their co-workers contracted H1N1.
Pigs culled on farm
Alberta Health Services, which commissioned the report to study effective protective strategies and to examine how to reduce the risk of infection to workers, did not fulfil requests by CBC News for an interview.
About 500 pigs were culled on a central Alberta farm near Rocky Mountain House in May. (CBC)
Clark said he was unaware of the AHS report until contacted by CBC News. He said the CFIA is conducting an internal investigation and is making changes to avoid a similar situation in the future.
About 500 hogs were culled on the Alberta pig farm on May 8, because the animals could not be sold. The animals had been under quarantine since April 28.
Swine flu is transmitted from animal to human mainly on pig farms where farmers and workers are in close contact with live pigs. The virus cannot be contracted through eating pork.
The spread of swine flu from human to human happens in the same way as seasonal flu, through coughing or sneezing.
Wednesday, 1 July 2009
MRSA - Pig Business - British TV Documentary
The documentary film "PIG BUSINESS" made with her own resources by the Marchioness of Worcester, Tracy Worcester, was screened last night on British TV.
Long delayed by the threat of legal action, Tracy’s film was a very pleasant surprise. She is a very capable film maker, personable and not at all cranky as a presenter.
It was a professional job. A lot of the material was a bit out of date and it was less gory than one would expect.
There were a number of themes in a very long documentary, but the main ones were:
“Big Business has been deliberately driving small farmers off the land.”
“Big pig farms are dangerous to human health.”
We did not agree with everything, nobody would, and Britain escaped much criticism that would have been justified.
Although critical of Smithfield, it was not anti-American in tone. You could screen this in the States, where much was set, with no problem apart from possibly Smithfield. Robert Kennedy Jnr played a prominent role – and about three republican presidents were quoted. Smithfield were interviewed on screen.
A MUST watch for everyone in Britain, America and Europe interested in industrial scale livestock production and the problems
The writer would add the following points of correction:
1. I do not think, in the absence of reliable information, thatt he antibiotics in manufactured pig feed were the major cause of "pig" MRSA. I believe the major cause from properly legally prescribed antibiotics to deal with the consequences of circovirus epidemics dating back to mutated circovirus (PMWS - PDNS etc from 1999 onwards.)
2. I believe that MRSA has been in British pigs for at least five years and that information has been deliberately withheld from public knowledge by Britain's agriculture ministry - Defra.
3. I do believe that Britain's vets, pig and pork workers should have been subject to "special" screening for MRSA on, or prior, to hospital entry, as well as routinely at place of employment.
Most regular readers here know all this well. One man can hardly have done more over many years to bring a disgraceful scandal to public attention.
Most of the details can be found on the newsgroup uk.business.agriculture - held offshore safe from British government tampering - accessible and searchable from Google Groups.
For those who missed the film the following is a transcript of the passages dealing with MRSA.
Transcript:
Tracy Worcester:
"Soon after this demonstration, new and disturbing reports appeared.
People could be in danger of getting the pig strain of MRSA, a bacterium which is resistant to antibiotics, similar to the human strain that kills several thousand people in British hospitals every year. The alleged culprit? The factory farming system, as farmer, Richard Young explained to me."
Richard Young, Policy Advisor, Soil Association:
"One of the big weaknesses in the system is their heavy dependence on antibiotics and the fact that causes infections which can spread from animals to humans, such as salmonella, e.coli and campylobacter and even MRSA and in the Netherlands, for example, where the most research has been undertaken, 40 per cent of their pigs are carrying the strain of MRSA that can pass to humans. It's been spread rapidly on the pigfarm because the antibiotics that have been put in the pig feed are actually selecting for it. That means they kill off the other bacteria which might provide some natural competition, but they don't kill off the MRSA because the MRSA is resistant. Meat which may appear very cheap is in fact, very, very expensive and in some cases that could be at the cost of our own lives."
Mark Enright, Prof. of Epidemiology, Imperial College:
"Because this strain's relatively common in other countries, it would be very surprising if this pig strain of MRSA wasn't in the UK and food chain and in the UK population. I think that's a fear that these animal strains, um, because we're selecting for them, we're using antibiotics in our animal populations and they can pick up resistance to antibiotics that we use in human health. In general, I don't think there's a great deal to be alarmed about. I would like,I think, to see farmers, certainly pig farmers, um, being offered testing for MRSA."
Long delayed by the threat of legal action, Tracy’s film was a very pleasant surprise. She is a very capable film maker, personable and not at all cranky as a presenter.
It was a professional job. A lot of the material was a bit out of date and it was less gory than one would expect.
There were a number of themes in a very long documentary, but the main ones were:
“Big Business has been deliberately driving small farmers off the land.”
“Big pig farms are dangerous to human health.”
We did not agree with everything, nobody would, and Britain escaped much criticism that would have been justified.
Although critical of Smithfield, it was not anti-American in tone. You could screen this in the States, where much was set, with no problem apart from possibly Smithfield. Robert Kennedy Jnr played a prominent role – and about three republican presidents were quoted. Smithfield were interviewed on screen.
A MUST watch for everyone in Britain, America and Europe interested in industrial scale livestock production and the problems
The writer would add the following points of correction:
1. I do not think, in the absence of reliable information, thatt he antibiotics in manufactured pig feed were the major cause of "pig" MRSA. I believe the major cause from properly legally prescribed antibiotics to deal with the consequences of circovirus epidemics dating back to mutated circovirus (PMWS - PDNS etc from 1999 onwards.)
2. I believe that MRSA has been in British pigs for at least five years and that information has been deliberately withheld from public knowledge by Britain's agriculture ministry - Defra.
3. I do believe that Britain's vets, pig and pork workers should have been subject to "special" screening for MRSA on, or prior, to hospital entry, as well as routinely at place of employment.
Most regular readers here know all this well. One man can hardly have done more over many years to bring a disgraceful scandal to public attention.
Most of the details can be found on the newsgroup uk.business.agriculture - held offshore safe from British government tampering - accessible and searchable from Google Groups.
For those who missed the film the following is a transcript of the passages dealing with MRSA.
Transcript:
Tracy Worcester:
"Soon after this demonstration, new and disturbing reports appeared.
People could be in danger of getting the pig strain of MRSA, a bacterium which is resistant to antibiotics, similar to the human strain that kills several thousand people in British hospitals every year. The alleged culprit? The factory farming system, as farmer, Richard Young explained to me."
Richard Young, Policy Advisor, Soil Association:
"One of the big weaknesses in the system is their heavy dependence on antibiotics and the fact that causes infections which can spread from animals to humans, such as salmonella, e.coli and campylobacter and even MRSA and in the Netherlands, for example, where the most research has been undertaken, 40 per cent of their pigs are carrying the strain of MRSA that can pass to humans. It's been spread rapidly on the pigfarm because the antibiotics that have been put in the pig feed are actually selecting for it. That means they kill off the other bacteria which might provide some natural competition, but they don't kill off the MRSA because the MRSA is resistant. Meat which may appear very cheap is in fact, very, very expensive and in some cases that could be at the cost of our own lives."
Mark Enright, Prof. of Epidemiology, Imperial College:
"Because this strain's relatively common in other countries, it would be very surprising if this pig strain of MRSA wasn't in the UK and food chain and in the UK population. I think that's a fear that these animal strains, um, because we're selecting for them, we're using antibiotics in our animal populations and they can pick up resistance to antibiotics that we use in human health. In general, I don't think there's a great deal to be alarmed about. I would like,I think, to see farmers, certainly pig farmers, um, being offered testing for MRSA."
Monday, 29 June 2009
MRSA - claims of a new" survey of British pigs
.
The National Pig Association has moved this morning to emphasise that the responsibility for admitting any MRSA in British pigs lies with Defra, the British Agriculture Ministry.
They do it in a bizarre way, but ensure the SVS will get all the blame when finally they are forced to admit that they have been hiding up MRSA in British pigs.
Unless Defra have yet another round of testing under way, something they have not announced, the tests were actually completed long ago and the positive results deliberately withheld from the public.
A senior British pig vetrinarian has admitted that British pigs do have MRSA but only when speaking outside Britain.
Most normal civilised countries have admitted MRSA in their pigs,including most of Europe and North America.
But this is Britain - a criminalised country with corrupt civil servants and government vets, faking and fiddling their way from crisis to crisis.
http://www.pigworld.co.uk/Pages/news.html
June 29
CONTINENTALS EYE UP ENGLISH WEANER MARKET
..."Defra is currently surveying the national pig herd to see if,unlike mainland Europe, it remains free from the drug-resistant superbug MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus).
If Defra's findings confirm the English herd is free from MRSA, industry leaders will urge Defra to insist any imports of weaners tothis country come from MRSA-free herds."...
The National Pig Association has moved this morning to emphasise that the responsibility for admitting any MRSA in British pigs lies with Defra, the British Agriculture Ministry.
They do it in a bizarre way, but ensure the SVS will get all the blame when finally they are forced to admit that they have been hiding up MRSA in British pigs.
Unless Defra have yet another round of testing under way, something they have not announced, the tests were actually completed long ago and the positive results deliberately withheld from the public.
A senior British pig vetrinarian has admitted that British pigs do have MRSA but only when speaking outside Britain.
Most normal civilised countries have admitted MRSA in their pigs,including most of Europe and North America.
But this is Britain - a criminalised country with corrupt civil servants and government vets, faking and fiddling their way from crisis to crisis.
http://www.pigworld.co.uk/Pages/news.html
June 29
CONTINENTALS EYE UP ENGLISH WEANER MARKET
..."Defra is currently surveying the national pig herd to see if,unlike mainland Europe, it remains free from the drug-resistant superbug MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus).
If Defra's findings confirm the English herd is free from MRSA, industry leaders will urge Defra to insist any imports of weaners tothis country come from MRSA-free herds."...
Monday, 15 June 2009
Swine Flu - Canadian Carpenter Cleared
.
As expected it was not the carpenter that gave the Alberta pigs swine flu.
The Canadian government now have a lot of explaining to do.
This blog said so on the 9th May.
http://animal-epidemics.blogspot.com/2009/05/lets-call-swine-flu-alberta-pig-flu.html
Others knew too, the dates did not add up. How many human lives has this cost?
How come the Canadians continued to mislead the world?
The story was a fabrication, not a mistake.
The Canadian veterinarians were lying and they have been caught.
You can see why the WHO were reluctant to rename the disease.
There is no evidence that the disease did not come from pigs and every reason to believe that it did.
The human health people in Canada are obviously upset with their bent vets.
You will see the same pattern emerge in the UK in the weeks to come.
http://www.edmontonsun.com/news/canada/2009/06/14/9796381.html
Blood tests provide information in pig farm swine flu case
By HELEN BRANSWELL, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Last Updated: 14th June 2009, 4:49pm
TORONTO - Officials have ruled out the prime suspect in the mystery over how a herd of Alberta pigs was infected with the new swine fluvirus sweeping the globe.
A spokesperson for Alberta Health and Wellness says blood tests haves hown that a carpenter who worked for half a day on the farm before heading home with flu-like illness did not introduce the virus to the herd.
"We've determined it wasn't the carpenter," says spokesperson Howard May.
The workman, Adrian Blaak, declined to be interviewed about the findings. Previously he'd said he did not believe he had infected thepigs, which were raised on a farm near Rocky Mountain House.
Blaak had just returned from a trip to Mexico when he went to do a jobat the farm on April 14.
At that point the new H1N1 virus was already circulating in parts of the Mexico, but the world was not yet aware anew flu virus was on the move.
The World Health Organization declared Thursday that the new virus has triggered a pandemic, the first in 41 years.
May says provincial health officials are starting to believe they may never find out how the virus made its way into the herd, the only pigs anywhere in the world to have tested positive for the new virus tothis point.
"Since serological (blood) tests indicated the carpenter had not had H1N1, someone else must have brought it in, but it is unlikely we will ever be able to pinpoint exactly who," says May.
Officials had earlier said several members of the family that owned the farm were sick a couple of days before Blaak worked there briefly. Others fell ill after the pigs started to display signs of being sick, leading authorities to suggest the virus may have gone from a person to pigs and back to people. Nasal swabs taken from people on the farm tested negative, but blood samples were taken to look for antibodies to the virus.
Whether that work is completed and what the tests showed if it is hasn't been made public.
Recently the farmer who owned the herd announced he had destroyed his pigs, because he could not sell the animals. The farm had been under quarantine since late April, when the outbreak first came to the attention of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
Sporadic tests continued to find evidence of possible ongoing circulation of virus in the herd, says Dr. Jim Clark, the national manager for disease control for CFIA's animal health division.
Over the course of the weeks of quarantine, testing found diminishing but still present viral DNA, which may or may not have meant infectious viruses were still spreading among the pigs, Clark says. He says the CFIA's lab in Winnipeg was only able to isolate live viruses from the pigs when they were sampled at the beginning of the investigation. Genetic sequencing of those viruses showed they are virtually identical to the swine flu viruses circulating in humans. Clark says CFIA would like to be able to determine how the pigs go tinfected. But he says the agency isn't getting much co-operation from human health counterparts responsible for testing the people involved.
"So far we haven't been able to get a whole lot of information from them," he says, adding that while he's not sure why that is, privacyconcerns may play a role.
"There's a need to know from a scientific perspective, to try and I guess to get a complete understanding of the epidemiology behind this, but at the same time not wanting to put this (farm) family under any more duress than they've already suffered."
Clark says he expects there will be other opportunities to learn about how this virus behaves when it gets into pig populations. With continued spread around the world, he suggests, "it's invariably going to result in the exposure of pigs in other countries and in other places."
But whether farmers will admit to it is another issue. The family who owned the Alberta herd has reportedly paid a heavy price, financially and personally. Pork sales are down, even though health officials have repeatedly stressed people can't get swine flu from eating pork. Though the CFIA has asked swine producers and veterinarians to be on the lookout for possible infection in herds and to submit any unusual flu viruses for further testing, "very little" is coming forward, Clark admits.
"As soon as there's a disease outbreak, everybody gets real nervous about what might be happening," he says.
The lengthy quarantining of the Alberta farm - and the unfortunate outcome - may discourage farmers from reporting flu-like symptoms in their pigs. There are a variety of influenza virus subtypes that infect pigs and outbreaks, while common, are not a long-term threat to the health of pigs.
"I think right now the production community is looking and saying 'OK,when you can tell us what you specifically want to do about the situation, then we might be in a situation to want to submit samples to find out what's going on,"' says Clark, who admits he has some sympathy for that position.
"From a purely scientific perspective, I'd love all the samples in theworld to be coming in and get as much background information as we can about where this virus may currently be occurring anywhere in the swine population," he says.
"On the practical side, without having a clearly defined policy thatis able to get us out of the situation as quickly as possible and define all the risk factors, I'm saying 'Well, maybe I don't really want to know about too many things that are going on right now until we can get more definitive information about what we need to be concerned about."
'- Follow Canadian Press Medical Writer Helen Branswell's flu updates onTwitter at CP-Branswell
As expected it was not the carpenter that gave the Alberta pigs swine flu.
The Canadian government now have a lot of explaining to do.
This blog said so on the 9th May.
http://animal-epidemics.blogspot.com/2009/05/lets-call-swine-flu-alberta-pig-flu.html
Others knew too, the dates did not add up. How many human lives has this cost?
How come the Canadians continued to mislead the world?
The story was a fabrication, not a mistake.
The Canadian veterinarians were lying and they have been caught.
You can see why the WHO were reluctant to rename the disease.
There is no evidence that the disease did not come from pigs and every reason to believe that it did.
The human health people in Canada are obviously upset with their bent vets.
You will see the same pattern emerge in the UK in the weeks to come.
http://www.edmontonsun.com/news/canada/2009/06/14/9796381.html
Blood tests provide information in pig farm swine flu case
By HELEN BRANSWELL, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Last Updated: 14th June 2009, 4:49pm
TORONTO - Officials have ruled out the prime suspect in the mystery over how a herd of Alberta pigs was infected with the new swine fluvirus sweeping the globe.
A spokesperson for Alberta Health and Wellness says blood tests haves hown that a carpenter who worked for half a day on the farm before heading home with flu-like illness did not introduce the virus to the herd.
"We've determined it wasn't the carpenter," says spokesperson Howard May.
The workman, Adrian Blaak, declined to be interviewed about the findings. Previously he'd said he did not believe he had infected thepigs, which were raised on a farm near Rocky Mountain House.
Blaak had just returned from a trip to Mexico when he went to do a jobat the farm on April 14.
At that point the new H1N1 virus was already circulating in parts of the Mexico, but the world was not yet aware anew flu virus was on the move.
The World Health Organization declared Thursday that the new virus has triggered a pandemic, the first in 41 years.
May says provincial health officials are starting to believe they may never find out how the virus made its way into the herd, the only pigs anywhere in the world to have tested positive for the new virus tothis point.
"Since serological (blood) tests indicated the carpenter had not had H1N1, someone else must have brought it in, but it is unlikely we will ever be able to pinpoint exactly who," says May.
Officials had earlier said several members of the family that owned the farm were sick a couple of days before Blaak worked there briefly. Others fell ill after the pigs started to display signs of being sick, leading authorities to suggest the virus may have gone from a person to pigs and back to people. Nasal swabs taken from people on the farm tested negative, but blood samples were taken to look for antibodies to the virus.
Whether that work is completed and what the tests showed if it is hasn't been made public.
Recently the farmer who owned the herd announced he had destroyed his pigs, because he could not sell the animals. The farm had been under quarantine since late April, when the outbreak first came to the attention of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
Sporadic tests continued to find evidence of possible ongoing circulation of virus in the herd, says Dr. Jim Clark, the national manager for disease control for CFIA's animal health division.
Over the course of the weeks of quarantine, testing found diminishing but still present viral DNA, which may or may not have meant infectious viruses were still spreading among the pigs, Clark says. He says the CFIA's lab in Winnipeg was only able to isolate live viruses from the pigs when they were sampled at the beginning of the investigation. Genetic sequencing of those viruses showed they are virtually identical to the swine flu viruses circulating in humans. Clark says CFIA would like to be able to determine how the pigs go tinfected. But he says the agency isn't getting much co-operation from human health counterparts responsible for testing the people involved.
"So far we haven't been able to get a whole lot of information from them," he says, adding that while he's not sure why that is, privacyconcerns may play a role.
"There's a need to know from a scientific perspective, to try and I guess to get a complete understanding of the epidemiology behind this, but at the same time not wanting to put this (farm) family under any more duress than they've already suffered."
Clark says he expects there will be other opportunities to learn about how this virus behaves when it gets into pig populations. With continued spread around the world, he suggests, "it's invariably going to result in the exposure of pigs in other countries and in other places."
But whether farmers will admit to it is another issue. The family who owned the Alberta herd has reportedly paid a heavy price, financially and personally. Pork sales are down, even though health officials have repeatedly stressed people can't get swine flu from eating pork. Though the CFIA has asked swine producers and veterinarians to be on the lookout for possible infection in herds and to submit any unusual flu viruses for further testing, "very little" is coming forward, Clark admits.
"As soon as there's a disease outbreak, everybody gets real nervous about what might be happening," he says.
The lengthy quarantining of the Alberta farm - and the unfortunate outcome - may discourage farmers from reporting flu-like symptoms in their pigs. There are a variety of influenza virus subtypes that infect pigs and outbreaks, while common, are not a long-term threat to the health of pigs.
"I think right now the production community is looking and saying 'OK,when you can tell us what you specifically want to do about the situation, then we might be in a situation to want to submit samples to find out what's going on,"' says Clark, who admits he has some sympathy for that position.
"From a purely scientific perspective, I'd love all the samples in theworld to be coming in and get as much background information as we can about where this virus may currently be occurring anywhere in the swine population," he says.
"On the practical side, without having a clearly defined policy thatis able to get us out of the situation as quickly as possible and define all the risk factors, I'm saying 'Well, maybe I don't really want to know about too many things that are going on right now until we can get more definitive information about what we need to be concerned about."
'- Follow Canadian Press Medical Writer Helen Branswell's flu updates onTwitter at CP-Branswell
Thursday, 28 May 2009
Swine Flu - Eton Closes
.
Disease is no respecter of person.
Which is why the writer can look any pig farmer in the face over Britain's constant animal health disasters.
They have been caused by corruption in Britain's State Veterinary Service.
It could be their kids. In fact, for some zoonotic diseases, including
MRSA, as the Dutch experience shows, it is more likely to be their kids.
We cannot allow a decade of veterinary corruption and associated
intimidation to be covered up by Westminster.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8072679.stm
Eton closes as boy has swine flu
Tamiflu tablets are prescribed for people with swine flu.
Public school Eton will close for a week after a pupil tested positive
for swine flu, a school spokesman has said.
It comes after health officials announced a further 17 people in the
UK were diagnosed with the virus, taking the total number of cases to
203.
Fourteen of the new cases - 13 children and one adult - are part of an
outbreak now totalling 64 cases linked to Welford Primary School in
Birmingham.
Welford is carrying out a "deep clean" while closed for half-term.
Disease is no respecter of person.
Which is why the writer can look any pig farmer in the face over Britain's constant animal health disasters.
They have been caused by corruption in Britain's State Veterinary Service.
It could be their kids. In fact, for some zoonotic diseases, including
MRSA, as the Dutch experience shows, it is more likely to be their kids.
We cannot allow a decade of veterinary corruption and associated
intimidation to be covered up by Westminster.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8072679.stm
Eton closes as boy has swine flu
Tamiflu tablets are prescribed for people with swine flu.
Public school Eton will close for a week after a pupil tested positive
for swine flu, a school spokesman has said.
It comes after health officials announced a further 17 people in the
UK were diagnosed with the virus, taking the total number of cases to
203.
Fourteen of the new cases - 13 children and one adult - are part of an
outbreak now totalling 64 cases linked to Welford Primary School in
Birmingham.
Welford is carrying out a "deep clean" while closed for half-term.
Saturday, 23 May 2009
MRSA - A decade of crime
It is very noticeable that the claim by a prominent British pig
veterinarian that British pigs have MRSA has not been repeated in the
British media. Indeed it seems to have been deliberately cut from
reports of the meeting carried in the United Kingdom.
It was made at a conference in the Irish Republic and recorded in the
Irish national press.
The claim is doubtless correct, although the one percent seems far too low and any suggestion, that there are no human health issues, unbelievably complacent.
"The British academic also said that a strain of MRSA found to be
present in the nose of 1pc of pigs is not related to MRSA in humans
and that no human death had ever been attributed to this strain."
http://www.independent.ie/farming/news-features/department-set-to-tackle-salmonella-1743361.html
That's not what other very serious and senior scientists suggest.
Serious corruption is not confined to the House of Commons.
When the British government is deliberately withholding information,
relevant to public health from the public, and with the collusion of
much of the agricultural and veterinary press, we have good reason to be worried.
Britain has a long and dishonourable record of hiding serious animal
and zoonotic health problems from its own people by bullying and
threatening the media.
Now, they lose control, thanks to the Internet and Google and the
newsgroup - uk.business.agriculture - where a decade of criminal
activity is recorded - and available for the world to search and see.
Britain's corrupt State Veterinary Service will be held to account
before the Courts and world opinion.
veterinarian that British pigs have MRSA has not been repeated in the
British media. Indeed it seems to have been deliberately cut from
reports of the meeting carried in the United Kingdom.
It was made at a conference in the Irish Republic and recorded in the
Irish national press.
The claim is doubtless correct, although the one percent seems far too low and any suggestion, that there are no human health issues, unbelievably complacent.
"The British academic also said that a strain of MRSA found to be
present in the nose of 1pc of pigs is not related to MRSA in humans
and that no human death had ever been attributed to this strain."
http://www.independent.ie/farming/news-features/department-set-to-tackle-salmonella-1743361.html
That's not what other very serious and senior scientists suggest.
Serious corruption is not confined to the House of Commons.
When the British government is deliberately withholding information,
relevant to public health from the public, and with the collusion of
much of the agricultural and veterinary press, we have good reason to be worried.
Britain has a long and dishonourable record of hiding serious animal
and zoonotic health problems from its own people by bullying and
threatening the media.
Now, they lose control, thanks to the Internet and Google and the
newsgroup - uk.business.agriculture - where a decade of criminal
activity is recorded - and available for the world to search and see.
Britain's corrupt State Veterinary Service will be held to account
before the Courts and world opinion.
Tuesday, 19 May 2009
MRSA in British pigs harmless to humans?
This quite extraordinary statement was given and published in the Republic of Ireland by a prominent British porcine vet.
Apparently it is OK to publish information in the Republic of Ireland
presumably based on data collected by British civil servants at British taxpayer's expense and refused to the British public for months on end by Britain's corrupt government vets.
Is it correct?
Who knows?
Pig health is a state secret in Britain.
Complainants, terrorised by the servants of the state, are wrongfully refused protection by the Speaker of the House of Commons when they give evidence to the Mother of Parliaments of civil service corruption.
http://www.independent.ie/farming/news-features/department-set-to-tackle-salmonella-1743361.html
Tuesday May 19 2009
The Department of Agriculture is to launch a new salmonella scheme in
a bid to tackle worrying levels of the disease in the national pig
herd...
(Editor's Note - reference is to the Irish pig herd)
...Meanwhile, Steve McOrist, from the University of Nottingham in
Britain, told the symposium that the results of the EU studies raised
the question of whether a programme that attempted to reduce
salmonella on pig farms would have any real benefit to humans...
...The British academic also said that a strain of MRSA found to be
present in the nose of 1pc of pigs is not related to MRSA in humans
and that no human death had ever been attributed to this strain.
Apparently it is OK to publish information in the Republic of Ireland
presumably based on data collected by British civil servants at British taxpayer's expense and refused to the British public for months on end by Britain's corrupt government vets.
Is it correct?
Who knows?
Pig health is a state secret in Britain.
Complainants, terrorised by the servants of the state, are wrongfully refused protection by the Speaker of the House of Commons when they give evidence to the Mother of Parliaments of civil service corruption.
http://www.independent.ie/farming/news-features/department-set-to-tackle-salmonella-1743361.html
Tuesday May 19 2009
The Department of Agriculture is to launch a new salmonella scheme in
a bid to tackle worrying levels of the disease in the national pig
herd...
(Editor's Note - reference is to the Irish pig herd)
...Meanwhile, Steve McOrist, from the University of Nottingham in
Britain, told the symposium that the results of the EU studies raised
the question of whether a programme that attempted to reduce
salmonella on pig farms would have any real benefit to humans...
...The British academic also said that a strain of MRSA found to be
present in the nose of 1pc of pigs is not related to MRSA in humans
and that no human death had ever been attributed to this strain.
Saturday, 9 May 2009
Let's call Swine Flu: Alberta Pig Flu.
In Alberta, not satisfied with any of the existing names, they are calling Swine Flu: "SOIV” (Swine Originated Influenza Virus)
It’s a good job some of the journalists are on the ball. These people have misled the world on what looks the most serious human health threat for decades.
Signs of disagreement between the medical and veterinary people, we note.
We also find out for the first time, that both the pigs and farmer were sick before the now famous carpenter turned up from Mexico: the man who was supposed to have introduced the "new" virus to the pigs, following his visit to Mexico.
“several family members were sick over the Easter weekend, a few days before the sick carpenter turned up on the farm.”
“adding that a chronic respiratory problem that had plagued the herd may have masked the first signs.”
The world should rename it "Alberta Pig Flu." They won’t do that again.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5gnPKzu61E4POiNlChs4406_pNqfg
Circumstantial evidence the only proof of person-to-pig H1N1 infection: CFIA
TORONTO — There is no smoking gun in the case of the H1N1 infected pigs - and authorities investigating the first known infections of pigs with this new swine flu virus may not be able to unearth one, a senior Canadian Food Inspection Agency official admits.
Testing of people on the Alberta farm - some of which was done too late, some of which may not have used the best technique to get an answer - has turned up no solid proof people brought the virus to the pigs. And it remains to be seen whether blood testing will be able to fill the evidence gap....
It’s a good job some of the journalists are on the ball. These people have misled the world on what looks the most serious human health threat for decades.
Signs of disagreement between the medical and veterinary people, we note.
We also find out for the first time, that both the pigs and farmer were sick before the now famous carpenter turned up from Mexico: the man who was supposed to have introduced the "new" virus to the pigs, following his visit to Mexico.
“several family members were sick over the Easter weekend, a few days before the sick carpenter turned up on the farm.”
“adding that a chronic respiratory problem that had plagued the herd may have masked the first signs.”
The world should rename it "Alberta Pig Flu." They won’t do that again.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5gnPKzu61E4POiNlChs4406_pNqfg
Circumstantial evidence the only proof of person-to-pig H1N1 infection: CFIA
TORONTO — There is no smoking gun in the case of the H1N1 infected pigs - and authorities investigating the first known infections of pigs with this new swine flu virus may not be able to unearth one, a senior Canadian Food Inspection Agency official admits.
Testing of people on the Alberta farm - some of which was done too late, some of which may not have used the best technique to get an answer - has turned up no solid proof people brought the virus to the pigs. And it remains to be seen whether blood testing will be able to fill the evidence gap....
Friday, 8 May 2009
Swine Flu - No spread from man to pigs
Over the years, it has become distressingly clear, that like Britain,
Canada is a constant source of disinformation about animal and human health epidemics.
They share the same low ethical standards with Britain's agricultural ministry and her bent vets. Their hospitals and intensive farms are riddled with a similar cocktail of zoonotic disease - under reported and over spun.
For days, it has been obvious that they have been lying about the
transfer of swine flu from humans to pigs in Alberta and have misled the whole world.
Information was withheld from the media and there were major discrepancies in the story that circled the world: signs of deliberate deception.
Fortunately, the main victim, the carpenter agrees and has the guts to expose them.
They had no evidence that this man was the source and the authorities are now scrabbling about trying to find or concoct some.
When the Canadian people find out what has been going on in Canada, the fur will really fly. They are suspicious already.
Now we need to know how the Candian pig herd did get infected with H1N1
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090508.FLU08ART2242/TPStory/National
A/H1N1 INFLUENZA
Worker at centre of pig-farm flu won't take blame
DAWN WALTON AND CAROLINE ALPHONSO
May 8, 2009
CALGARY, TORONTO -- The carpenter at the centre of a virulent new
strain of flu on an Alberta pig farm said he didn't think twice about
showing up to work sick, hardly expecting that the virus he might have
brought home from Mexico would soon "wreck" the pork industry...
...Two days after he returned from travelling to Mexico as part of the
congregation of Rocky Mountain House Covenant, a Christian Reform
Church in his central Alberta hometown, Mr. Blaak felt a bit under the
weather, but he went ahead with a contract to change some vents at a
local pig barn. He said he worked in an area above the pigs and never
touched them.
But he felt terrible later that night.
He stayed home for a week toughing out the cough and fever in bed. He
sought medical attention on April 24, after reports of the A/H1N1 flu
emerged, even though he no longer felt sick.
"I got tested twice for it and both tests came back negative," Mr.
Blaak said.
Frank Plummer, scientific director of the National Microbiology
Laboratory in Winnipeg, said yesterday that the tests done on Mr.
Blaak were negative for the virus. But the testing was done after he
recovered, Dr. Plummer said, adding that scientists will look for
antibodies in a serum sample.
Other workers on the farm also tested negative for the new virus, Dr.
Plummer said.
Mr. Blaak said he believes officials have jumped to conclusions and
the illness has been blown out of proportion.
"They kind of wreck an industry," he said.....
Canada is a constant source of disinformation about animal and human health epidemics.
They share the same low ethical standards with Britain's agricultural ministry and her bent vets. Their hospitals and intensive farms are riddled with a similar cocktail of zoonotic disease - under reported and over spun.
For days, it has been obvious that they have been lying about the
transfer of swine flu from humans to pigs in Alberta and have misled the whole world.
Information was withheld from the media and there were major discrepancies in the story that circled the world: signs of deliberate deception.
Fortunately, the main victim, the carpenter agrees and has the guts to expose them.
They had no evidence that this man was the source and the authorities are now scrabbling about trying to find or concoct some.
When the Canadian people find out what has been going on in Canada, the fur will really fly. They are suspicious already.
Now we need to know how the Candian pig herd did get infected with H1N1
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090508.FLU08ART2242/TPStory/National
A/H1N1 INFLUENZA
Worker at centre of pig-farm flu won't take blame
DAWN WALTON AND CAROLINE ALPHONSO
May 8, 2009
CALGARY, TORONTO -- The carpenter at the centre of a virulent new
strain of flu on an Alberta pig farm said he didn't think twice about
showing up to work sick, hardly expecting that the virus he might have
brought home from Mexico would soon "wreck" the pork industry...
...Two days after he returned from travelling to Mexico as part of the
congregation of Rocky Mountain House Covenant, a Christian Reform
Church in his central Alberta hometown, Mr. Blaak felt a bit under the
weather, but he went ahead with a contract to change some vents at a
local pig barn. He said he worked in an area above the pigs and never
touched them.
But he felt terrible later that night.
He stayed home for a week toughing out the cough and fever in bed. He
sought medical attention on April 24, after reports of the A/H1N1 flu
emerged, even though he no longer felt sick.
"I got tested twice for it and both tests came back negative," Mr.
Blaak said.
Frank Plummer, scientific director of the National Microbiology
Laboratory in Winnipeg, said yesterday that the tests done on Mr.
Blaak were negative for the virus. But the testing was done after he
recovered, Dr. Plummer said, adding that scientists will look for
antibodies in a serum sample.
Other workers on the farm also tested negative for the new virus, Dr.
Plummer said.
Mr. Blaak said he believes officials have jumped to conclusions and
the illness has been blown out of proportion.
"They kind of wreck an industry," he said.....
Tuesday, 5 May 2009
Swine Flu - the name game
The Swine Flu name game continues, but may now have more significance.
On BBC TV lunchtime today both the British Home Secretary and the Chief Medical Officer, Liam Donaldson, referred to H1N1 as "Swine Flu."
The front cover of the government booklet being sent to every home refers to "Swine Flu."
Why?
It does seem odd. The WHO gave in to pork lobby pressure to only use "H1N1", and they made a great song and dance about the change, as did President Obama.
But Britain won't change.
That's not like official Britain, is it? The man in the street may not be influenced; but governments normally follow United Nations guidance.
It may well reflect tensions between the medical professions and the vets over MRSA and C.Diff in the pigs leaking into the hospitals.
There is considerable evidence to support this.
HM Customs & Excise were obviously instructed not to dispute the origins of the CSF and FMD epidemics with Maff-Defra, the agricultural ministry, despite Customs being made the scapegoats.
The government could never have kept the medical profession quiet over MRSA st398 for this long without a direct order from the top.
The medical boys knew. They were actually sitting on committees being induced to assist the cover-up and acquiesce in cover stories by the government veterinarians.
The government were quietly running down the size of the State Veterinary Service and removing, very discretely, their authority.
They have been doing so for some years and the writer has frequently publicly complained that it was too slow a process.
The British Government may have come to the same conclusion. The advent of swine flu makes veterinarians far too dangerous as employees to support or protect.
They are right. Their vets are serial offenders and we have had far too many bent vet diseases in Britain accompanied by oppression and intimidation.
That cannot continue through a human pandemic.
The government veterinarians are far more dangerous than the pigs. The pigs get culled or eaten, the vets live on at public expense to re-offend.
-- Regards Pat Gardiner
Release the results of testing British pigs for MRSA and C.Diff now!
www.go-self-sufficient.com and http://animal-epidemics.blogspot.com/
On BBC TV lunchtime today both the British Home Secretary and the Chief Medical Officer, Liam Donaldson, referred to H1N1 as "Swine Flu."
The front cover of the government booklet being sent to every home refers to "Swine Flu."
Why?
It does seem odd. The WHO gave in to pork lobby pressure to only use "H1N1", and they made a great song and dance about the change, as did President Obama.
But Britain won't change.
That's not like official Britain, is it? The man in the street may not be influenced; but governments normally follow United Nations guidance.
It may well reflect tensions between the medical professions and the vets over MRSA and C.Diff in the pigs leaking into the hospitals.
There is considerable evidence to support this.
HM Customs & Excise were obviously instructed not to dispute the origins of the CSF and FMD epidemics with Maff-Defra, the agricultural ministry, despite Customs being made the scapegoats.
The government could never have kept the medical profession quiet over MRSA st398 for this long without a direct order from the top.
The medical boys knew. They were actually sitting on committees being induced to assist the cover-up and acquiesce in cover stories by the government veterinarians.
The government were quietly running down the size of the State Veterinary Service and removing, very discretely, their authority.
They have been doing so for some years and the writer has frequently publicly complained that it was too slow a process.
The British Government may have come to the same conclusion. The advent of swine flu makes veterinarians far too dangerous as employees to support or protect.
They are right. Their vets are serial offenders and we have had far too many bent vet diseases in Britain accompanied by oppression and intimidation.
That cannot continue through a human pandemic.
The government veterinarians are far more dangerous than the pigs. The pigs get culled or eaten, the vets live on at public expense to re-offend.
-- Regards Pat Gardiner
Release the results of testing British pigs for MRSA and C.Diff now!
www.go-self-sufficient.com and http://animal-epidemics.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
MRSA - understanding good statistics
.
The current flurry of improved MRSA statistics coming from British Health Service Trusts needs a degree of informed interpretation.
Most knowledgeable commentators have some doubts about the NHS statistics being totally free from the malign influence of "targets."
If you pay over the odds for sick animals, the market delivers sick animals in huge numbers, we know that from the Foot and Mouth outbreak in 2001.
If you pay over the odds for NHS Chief Executives to produce reductions in MRSA, you get statistics that show an improvement.
The greed-driven economy is easy to predict. It produces whatever you pay for, especially if the pay is generous and the payee ruthlessly inadequate and focused on benefiting personally from good results.
That aside, there are perfectly respectable, but still more ominous,reasons why the MRSA figures often show a genuine improvement and probably will continue to do so for some months.
This at a time when the real situation on the ground may well deteriorate further.
NHS MRSA screening has almost reached its objective of universal screening for all elective surgery. The gradual introduction over past months would bring an improvement in the statistics. Enough money has been spent upon it.
Screening NHS style detects about 70 percent of carriers who can be sent home to "clean up" or in emergency situations given a degree of isolation and attention until they are clear.
This, taken together with good ward cleaning, washing hands etc, should and will reduce the rates of MRSA.
Good so far! Well Done NHS.
What are you going to do about the 30 percent missed of human carriers by the nasal swabs?
BUT the statistics of HA - Hospital Acquired - MRSA were always overstated and over the years the writer has staunchly defended the NHS from being blamed for CA - Community Acquired- MRSA. They were carrying the can for incoming patients bringing MRSA into the hospital and spreading it about undetected.
So the situation in the hospital sector may well improve, for a while whilst the situation in the community deteriorates sharply. We can be lulled into believing all is well, when the opposite is the case. All over the world, the attention is shifting dramatically to risks beyond the hospital walls. Eventually MRSA will wash back into the wards from outside.
The European Continental system of "Search and Destroy" with its more reliable testing centred on the obvious risk patients of veterinarians, pig and pork industry patients, will always give better real results, both within the hospitals and outside in the community.
The Continentals have few problems in their hospitals and a clear vision of the problems on the farms and in the meat factories.
Britain, Ireland (with a single exception), Canada and now the United States have chosen a system that may well give some false confidence for a few short months and delay the necessary measures been taken way beyond the hospital doors.
The situation is serious and time is not on our side.
The current flurry of improved MRSA statistics coming from British Health Service Trusts needs a degree of informed interpretation.
Most knowledgeable commentators have some doubts about the NHS statistics being totally free from the malign influence of "targets."
If you pay over the odds for sick animals, the market delivers sick animals in huge numbers, we know that from the Foot and Mouth outbreak in 2001.
If you pay over the odds for NHS Chief Executives to produce reductions in MRSA, you get statistics that show an improvement.
The greed-driven economy is easy to predict. It produces whatever you pay for, especially if the pay is generous and the payee ruthlessly inadequate and focused on benefiting personally from good results.
That aside, there are perfectly respectable, but still more ominous,reasons why the MRSA figures often show a genuine improvement and probably will continue to do so for some months.
This at a time when the real situation on the ground may well deteriorate further.
NHS MRSA screening has almost reached its objective of universal screening for all elective surgery. The gradual introduction over past months would bring an improvement in the statistics. Enough money has been spent upon it.
Screening NHS style detects about 70 percent of carriers who can be sent home to "clean up" or in emergency situations given a degree of isolation and attention until they are clear.
This, taken together with good ward cleaning, washing hands etc, should and will reduce the rates of MRSA.
Good so far! Well Done NHS.
What are you going to do about the 30 percent missed of human carriers by the nasal swabs?
BUT the statistics of HA - Hospital Acquired - MRSA were always overstated and over the years the writer has staunchly defended the NHS from being blamed for CA - Community Acquired- MRSA. They were carrying the can for incoming patients bringing MRSA into the hospital and spreading it about undetected.
So the situation in the hospital sector may well improve, for a while whilst the situation in the community deteriorates sharply. We can be lulled into believing all is well, when the opposite is the case. All over the world, the attention is shifting dramatically to risks beyond the hospital walls. Eventually MRSA will wash back into the wards from outside.
The European Continental system of "Search and Destroy" with its more reliable testing centred on the obvious risk patients of veterinarians, pig and pork industry patients, will always give better real results, both within the hospitals and outside in the community.
The Continentals have few problems in their hospitals and a clear vision of the problems on the farms and in the meat factories.
Britain, Ireland (with a single exception), Canada and now the United States have chosen a system that may well give some false confidence for a few short months and delay the necessary measures been taken way beyond the hospital doors.
The situation is serious and time is not on our side.
Sunday, 19 April 2009
MRSA - no pets or flying veterinarians
.
The anticipated campaign of "blame the pets" or perhaps more politically correct "blame the companion animals" is getting under way in the United States.
Thoughtfully suggested as an excuse for MRSA st398, escaping from pig farms and into the hospitals and community, by Britain's bent government vets to their North American colleagues.
The latter who doubtless would have arrived at the same explanation eventually without British help.
So the spin line is clear - "people give MRSA to pets, who give it back to people - just one of those things and nobody's fault."
Perfect disinformation, classically British, perfectly true, but only part of the story.
Alas, if you listen to crooks with the style, flash and dash of Britain's corrupt government vets, it is easy to be seduced onto the easy road to veterinary ruin.
In their blind panic to shift the blame for human deaths to the innocent, they forget something pretty important.
The people most likely to be handling animals other than their owners are likely to be the vets treating them, often for routine procedures.
The people most likely to be giving the pets and their owners MRSA are veterinarians.
Several series of tests have been taken at veterinary conferences. The results?
Vets, especially livestock vets, carry MRSA in disproportionate numbers. The vets, themselves creditably, although not in Britain,have provided the evidence.
Which is why the Dutch and other Continental European countries target veterinarians for special testing and decontamination at the hospital door. They want to stop them spreading it to other patients under their "Search and Destroy" regime, lately adopted by one private hospital in Dublin.
Alas, that bright bit of spin that pets are the problem has hit the floor at great speed. And worse for the vets, the full consequences are yet to be played out.
That passport with those proud words "Veterinary Surgeon" becomes manacle to keep vets close to home, away from international conferences and holiday homes, off airlines with recirculated air.
Cruises, already fraught with epidemics, won't welcome them either.
International travel will become difficult, if not impossible. Try getting back from Florida to Wimbledon by sea these days, if some airline pulls the plug on veterinarians to protect their passengers.
Thanks to Defra's lunatic vets, Britain's 22000 vets are going to have to stay home to help sort out the mess that envelops our farms, hospitals, futures and prosperity.
Seems fair enough. They could and should have stopped the agricultural ministry Maff-Defra from faking the science years ago.
The bet is that American vets will be too smart to be conned by British crooks. They might get grounded but they will stay out of jail.
The anticipated campaign of "blame the pets" or perhaps more politically correct "blame the companion animals" is getting under way in the United States.
Thoughtfully suggested as an excuse for MRSA st398, escaping from pig farms and into the hospitals and community, by Britain's bent government vets to their North American colleagues.
The latter who doubtless would have arrived at the same explanation eventually without British help.
So the spin line is clear - "people give MRSA to pets, who give it back to people - just one of those things and nobody's fault."
Perfect disinformation, classically British, perfectly true, but only part of the story.
Alas, if you listen to crooks with the style, flash and dash of Britain's corrupt government vets, it is easy to be seduced onto the easy road to veterinary ruin.
In their blind panic to shift the blame for human deaths to the innocent, they forget something pretty important.
The people most likely to be handling animals other than their owners are likely to be the vets treating them, often for routine procedures.
The people most likely to be giving the pets and their owners MRSA are veterinarians.
Several series of tests have been taken at veterinary conferences. The results?
Vets, especially livestock vets, carry MRSA in disproportionate numbers. The vets, themselves creditably, although not in Britain,have provided the evidence.
Which is why the Dutch and other Continental European countries target veterinarians for special testing and decontamination at the hospital door. They want to stop them spreading it to other patients under their "Search and Destroy" regime, lately adopted by one private hospital in Dublin.
Alas, that bright bit of spin that pets are the problem has hit the floor at great speed. And worse for the vets, the full consequences are yet to be played out.
That passport with those proud words "Veterinary Surgeon" becomes manacle to keep vets close to home, away from international conferences and holiday homes, off airlines with recirculated air.
Cruises, already fraught with epidemics, won't welcome them either.
International travel will become difficult, if not impossible. Try getting back from Florida to Wimbledon by sea these days, if some airline pulls the plug on veterinarians to protect their passengers.
Thanks to Defra's lunatic vets, Britain's 22000 vets are going to have to stay home to help sort out the mess that envelops our farms, hospitals, futures and prosperity.
Seems fair enough. They could and should have stopped the agricultural ministry Maff-Defra from faking the science years ago.
The bet is that American vets will be too smart to be conned by British crooks. They might get grounded but they will stay out of jail.
Saturday, 11 April 2009
MRSA - The law of unintended consequences.
.
In January 2008, Gordon Brown, British PM, after some confusion, announced MRSA screening for patients on entry to hospitals for elective surgery, to take effect as soon as possible.
He was on TV two days running, making minor corrections on the second occasion.
That seemed perverse, even at the time.
For cost and practicality, the proven Dutch model of thoroughly screening veterinarians, pig and pork workers, would have been preferable.
The Dutch model could been implemented faster and would have saved many lives. It also would have helped stop spread.
But it would have meant an admission that the government veterinary terror squads had caused an international disaster.
Anyway non-descriminatery screening sounds better, especially when you would have to discriminate against the vets currently going from farm to farm spreading disease.
Vets being taken aside for special measures would have alerted the media.
The law of unintended consequences has struck.
It applies to MRSA specifically, but has echoes to all other pig and livestock related diseases.
Screening has just come in for most NHS trusts with all the bally-hoo you would expect.
Recently, I spotted an unusual remark from Ipswich.
"IPSWICH Hospital is winning the war on superbugs today, but in the community the battle is faltering."
Prof. Pennington is admitting community acquired C.Diff rises in Grampian, Scotland
The Chief Medical Officer is talking about the problems of livestock related disease.
The penny has dropped.
Up to the present, it has been very easy for NHS trusts to massage the figures for MRSA or C.Diff by marking them down as "Community Acquired" and failing to mention these cases in their reports.
Livestock related disease was falling into a black hole of non-reporting, as hospitals struggled to deal with the consequences.
Universal screening, prior to elective surgery, not only wrecks that scam, but it actually puts it into reverse.
MRSA screening by a quick nasal swab (which is what is being used)fails to pick up 30 percent. Those 30 percent are now going to turn up in the "hospital acquired" figures.
What are our PR bunnies and their over paid bosses going to do? The change is going to wreck their plans and careers.
They could come out and blame pigs.
They could wait for bad figures and try to explain. That will finger pigs too, indirectly, but will come later.
They could start preparing the ground as Ipswich were doing this week.
They will probably do all three in different places and different times.
Now the general situation is going from bad to worse especially in Britain and Canada, with the United States now following. Frankly, we now face a series of livestock related human epidemics.
All our literature from the shabby to the superb has long prophesied scientists starting a pandemic and, oddly, the governments covering it up in a world of constant surveillance, totalitarianism and personal intimidation under the guise of "Let's not start a panic."
It looks like it's here. We all must have wondered what one would do in such a "theoretical" possibility.
Now, we will all find out.
In January 2008, Gordon Brown, British PM, after some confusion, announced MRSA screening for patients on entry to hospitals for elective surgery, to take effect as soon as possible.
He was on TV two days running, making minor corrections on the second occasion.
That seemed perverse, even at the time.
For cost and practicality, the proven Dutch model of thoroughly screening veterinarians, pig and pork workers, would have been preferable.
The Dutch model could been implemented faster and would have saved many lives. It also would have helped stop spread.
But it would have meant an admission that the government veterinary terror squads had caused an international disaster.
Anyway non-descriminatery screening sounds better, especially when you would have to discriminate against the vets currently going from farm to farm spreading disease.
Vets being taken aside for special measures would have alerted the media.
The law of unintended consequences has struck.
It applies to MRSA specifically, but has echoes to all other pig and livestock related diseases.
Screening has just come in for most NHS trusts with all the bally-hoo you would expect.
Recently, I spotted an unusual remark from Ipswich.
"IPSWICH Hospital is winning the war on superbugs today, but in the community the battle is faltering."
Prof. Pennington is admitting community acquired C.Diff rises in Grampian, Scotland
The Chief Medical Officer is talking about the problems of livestock related disease.
The penny has dropped.
Up to the present, it has been very easy for NHS trusts to massage the figures for MRSA or C.Diff by marking them down as "Community Acquired" and failing to mention these cases in their reports.
Livestock related disease was falling into a black hole of non-reporting, as hospitals struggled to deal with the consequences.
Universal screening, prior to elective surgery, not only wrecks that scam, but it actually puts it into reverse.
MRSA screening by a quick nasal swab (which is what is being used)fails to pick up 30 percent. Those 30 percent are now going to turn up in the "hospital acquired" figures.
What are our PR bunnies and their over paid bosses going to do? The change is going to wreck their plans and careers.
They could come out and blame pigs.
They could wait for bad figures and try to explain. That will finger pigs too, indirectly, but will come later.
They could start preparing the ground as Ipswich were doing this week.
They will probably do all three in different places and different times.
Now the general situation is going from bad to worse especially in Britain and Canada, with the United States now following. Frankly, we now face a series of livestock related human epidemics.
All our literature from the shabby to the superb has long prophesied scientists starting a pandemic and, oddly, the governments covering it up in a world of constant surveillance, totalitarianism and personal intimidation under the guise of "Let's not start a panic."
It looks like it's here. We all must have wondered what one would do in such a "theoretical" possibility.
Now, we will all find out.
Friday, 10 April 2009
MRSA - Pigs - Britain's Plan B
This report is compiled from a variety of sources, mostly government.
Sooner or later, Britain’s corrupt State Veterinary Service are going to have to admit that Britain’s pigs have MRSA.
It will become clear that they have been deliberately covering it up for some years.
We know that they are very concerned that the admission will be “misunderstood” by the general public.
The general public will understand perfectly that they have been lied to again and will be lining up to put the boot up some veterinary and political backsides.
The MRSA will probably be St398 and/or a selection of related strains.
There will be continuation of the campaign to blame the Dutch, Danes, illegal immigrants, imaginary terrorists and especially anyone weak and vulnerable.
But that will not be enough. The government vets have been running out of innocent victims to blame for their crimes against humanity.
They plan to use pets or “companion animals” as the cover story. They intend to claim that pets get MRSA from humans and then pass it back to humans.
They do not intend to admit the high level of MRSA carriers within the veterinary profession, who are probably more likely to be the source for any MRSA in cats, dogs and horses.
They have been working hard with some virtually “in-house” animal charities, dominated by vets, to get them to push the “pets are a risk” agenda.
No doubt, the compliant vets hope for even more money and the charities a big increase in donations to spend on “blame the pets” PR and the services of vets.
Defra has been holding consultations with North American veterinary organisations to co-ordinate their new campaign.
So watch for news items appearing featuring Tiddles and Fido with soft compassionate vets and sweet music: together with instructions to consult your vet.
They would have included sweet little old ladies, but I imagine that veterinary blunders, lies and greed will have killed them all off by then.
Sooner or later, Britain’s corrupt State Veterinary Service are going to have to admit that Britain’s pigs have MRSA.
It will become clear that they have been deliberately covering it up for some years.
We know that they are very concerned that the admission will be “misunderstood” by the general public.
The general public will understand perfectly that they have been lied to again and will be lining up to put the boot up some veterinary and political backsides.
The MRSA will probably be St398 and/or a selection of related strains.
There will be continuation of the campaign to blame the Dutch, Danes, illegal immigrants, imaginary terrorists and especially anyone weak and vulnerable.
But that will not be enough. The government vets have been running out of innocent victims to blame for their crimes against humanity.
They plan to use pets or “companion animals” as the cover story. They intend to claim that pets get MRSA from humans and then pass it back to humans.
They do not intend to admit the high level of MRSA carriers within the veterinary profession, who are probably more likely to be the source for any MRSA in cats, dogs and horses.
They have been working hard with some virtually “in-house” animal charities, dominated by vets, to get them to push the “pets are a risk” agenda.
No doubt, the compliant vets hope for even more money and the charities a big increase in donations to spend on “blame the pets” PR and the services of vets.
Defra has been holding consultations with North American veterinary organisations to co-ordinate their new campaign.
So watch for news items appearing featuring Tiddles and Fido with soft compassionate vets and sweet music: together with instructions to consult your vet.
They would have included sweet little old ladies, but I imagine that veterinary blunders, lies and greed will have killed them all off by then.
Friday, 3 April 2009
MRSA returns to P.E.I. hospital nursery
More and more problems at a hospital, in pig country with a history of circovirus problems, that is less than open with the community.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/prince-edward-island/story/2009/04/03/pe-superbug-nursery.html
Superbug infection returns to P.E.I. hospital nursery Last Updated: Friday, April 3, 2009 7:19 AM AT
CBC News Three babies born in the last three weeks at Charlottetown's Queen Elizabeth Hospital have tested positive for antibiotic-resistant bacteria, just weeks after an outbreak was declared over.
Two of the babies are infected with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and officials are still waiting for final test results on the third. The babies are all healthy and have been sent home.
Hospital executive director Rick Adams told CBC News Thursday they still don't know the source of the problem. "We were looking at what is different over the last several weeks,"said Adams.
"Number one, we know we have relaxed our visiting restrictions. Number Two, since the outbreak back in late 2008 was declared over, we slowly relaxed other barrier precautions. In spite of that though, at the same time, we were carrying out or conducting environmental swabs."
Visitor restrictions and requirements for gloves and gowns in the maternity ward were lifted in late February after an outbreak that began last spring was felt to be under control.
Increased infection control measures and visiting restrictions are being put back in place in the maternity unit. All health-care workers will wear gloves, gowns and masks when caring for newborns. In addition, mothers and babies will continue to be screened for MRSA.The only people allowed to visit in the maternal-newborn care area will be partners, grandparents and siblings. Visitors are being restricted to immediate family for gynecology patients.
Adams said at this point staff are not being tested.
Strict rules on cleaning hands upon entering and leaving the hospital are also in place.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/prince-edward-island/story/2009/04/03/pe-superbug-nursery.html
Superbug infection returns to P.E.I. hospital nursery Last Updated: Friday, April 3, 2009 7:19 AM AT
CBC News Three babies born in the last three weeks at Charlottetown's Queen Elizabeth Hospital have tested positive for antibiotic-resistant bacteria, just weeks after an outbreak was declared over.
Two of the babies are infected with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and officials are still waiting for final test results on the third. The babies are all healthy and have been sent home.
Hospital executive director Rick Adams told CBC News Thursday they still don't know the source of the problem. "We were looking at what is different over the last several weeks,"said Adams.
"Number one, we know we have relaxed our visiting restrictions. Number Two, since the outbreak back in late 2008 was declared over, we slowly relaxed other barrier precautions. In spite of that though, at the same time, we were carrying out or conducting environmental swabs."
Visitor restrictions and requirements for gloves and gowns in the maternity ward were lifted in late February after an outbreak that began last spring was felt to be under control.
Increased infection control measures and visiting restrictions are being put back in place in the maternity unit. All health-care workers will wear gloves, gowns and masks when caring for newborns. In addition, mothers and babies will continue to be screened for MRSA.The only people allowed to visit in the maternal-newborn care area will be partners, grandparents and siblings. Visitors are being restricted to immediate family for gynecology patients.
Adams said at this point staff are not being tested.
Strict rules on cleaning hands upon entering and leaving the hospital are also in place.
Sunday, 29 March 2009
MRSA St398 News Breaks in Britain.
Pat's Note: Whilst I certainly do not approve of "blaming the Dutch"and the report has factual errors and repeats blatant lies, that does not matter.
Most of the errors can be corrected by reference to the newsgroup uk.business.agriculture and its archives.
It will not take long for Joe Public to wonder why Britain is refusing to test its pigs at the same time as blaming the Dutch.
It will take the Dutch even less time to start making formal complaints against the British Government.
Britain's bent vets are on their way to prosecution and prison.
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/91887/Farm-bug-found-in-hospitals
FARM BUG FOUND IN HOSPITALS
BAD BACON: The MRSA found in Dutch pigs has infected farmers and others
Sunday March 29,2009
By Lucy Johnston and Martyn Halle
A DEADLY new form of MRSA is believed to be spreading from farm animals to humans - already the bacteria has been found in hospitals abroad.
It is the first time the bug has spread in this way and experts believe excessive use of antibiotics in factory-farmed animals may be behind its development.
"Farm animal" MRSA, as it is known, can cause a raft of illnesses including skin infections, pneumonia, bone infections and endocarditis.
The revelation raises fears about viruses and bugs moving from animals to humans in the way that Avian flu infected humans from poultry.
The new MRSA bug, known as ST398, could reach hospitals in the UK,causing serious illness and death among vulnerable patients.
The bug is not only in the animals but also in slaughtered meat.Scientists believe one way it could get into the UK is through contact with raw meat during food preparation.
ST398 was discovered in Holland when factory-farmed pigs passed it onto pig farmers. Now Government experts are carrying out tests to see if ST398 is in the UK's pig population.
Doctors in Holland also found it had spread to patients who had no contact with pig farming or farmers. In one area of Holland 60 percent of all MRSA cases are testing positive for the new strain.
Although ST398 has only recently been discovered it now causes almost one in three cases of MRSA treated in Dutch animal-to-human transmission have been found hospitals. Europe. And scientists have discovered the bug?Cases?of?throughout in other animals including beef cattle and factory-farmed chickens.
There are fears the bug may have already infected people in the UK although so far there have been no reports of it in UK hospitals.
Approximately 60 per cent of the pig meat eaten in the UK comes from the Netherlands and other countries. A Dutch Government study has found that about 10 per cent of slaughtered Dutch pork is contaminated with MRSA. The bug is caused by the over-use of antibiotics in intensive farming.The worry is that its over-use in animals could cause major problems for people.
Dr Mark Enwright, a consultant microbiologist at Imperial London,said: "The disturbing College leapt from animals into humans.?thing about this new strain is that it has "Because this is a new phenomenon we can't be sure how serious a problem it poses to humans. So we will have to be vigilant and hope it doesn't spread."
Around 60 per cent of all pigs in Holland are infected with ST398 and between 30 and 40 per cent of all pig farmers carry the bug - either on their skin or in their respiratory tract.
Most farmers are carriers of the bug and have no symptoms but they cans spread the bug to other people and can become infected themselves if they undergo surgery and the bug moves from their skin into a surgical wound.
Coilin Nunan, a spokesman for Soil Association, said: "It has probably got into the UK via raw pork or through our importation of Dutch bacon."
A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesman said:"We have carried out a study of our pig population and are awaiting the results."
-- Regards Pat Gardiner
Release the results of testing British pigs for MRSA and C.Diff now!
www.go-self-sufficient.com and http://animal-epidemics.blogspot.com/
Most of the errors can be corrected by reference to the newsgroup uk.business.agriculture and its archives.
It will not take long for Joe Public to wonder why Britain is refusing to test its pigs at the same time as blaming the Dutch.
It will take the Dutch even less time to start making formal complaints against the British Government.
Britain's bent vets are on their way to prosecution and prison.
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/91887/Farm-bug-found-in-hospitals
FARM BUG FOUND IN HOSPITALS
BAD BACON: The MRSA found in Dutch pigs has infected farmers and others
Sunday March 29,2009
By Lucy Johnston and Martyn Halle
A DEADLY new form of MRSA is believed to be spreading from farm animals to humans - already the bacteria has been found in hospitals abroad.
It is the first time the bug has spread in this way and experts believe excessive use of antibiotics in factory-farmed animals may be behind its development.
"Farm animal" MRSA, as it is known, can cause a raft of illnesses including skin infections, pneumonia, bone infections and endocarditis.
The revelation raises fears about viruses and bugs moving from animals to humans in the way that Avian flu infected humans from poultry.
The new MRSA bug, known as ST398, could reach hospitals in the UK,causing serious illness and death among vulnerable patients.
The bug is not only in the animals but also in slaughtered meat.Scientists believe one way it could get into the UK is through contact with raw meat during food preparation.
ST398 was discovered in Holland when factory-farmed pigs passed it onto pig farmers. Now Government experts are carrying out tests to see if ST398 is in the UK's pig population.
Doctors in Holland also found it had spread to patients who had no contact with pig farming or farmers. In one area of Holland 60 percent of all MRSA cases are testing positive for the new strain.
Although ST398 has only recently been discovered it now causes almost one in three cases of MRSA treated in Dutch animal-to-human transmission have been found hospitals. Europe. And scientists have discovered the bug?Cases?of?throughout in other animals including beef cattle and factory-farmed chickens.
There are fears the bug may have already infected people in the UK although so far there have been no reports of it in UK hospitals.
Approximately 60 per cent of the pig meat eaten in the UK comes from the Netherlands and other countries. A Dutch Government study has found that about 10 per cent of slaughtered Dutch pork is contaminated with MRSA. The bug is caused by the over-use of antibiotics in intensive farming.The worry is that its over-use in animals could cause major problems for people.
Dr Mark Enwright, a consultant microbiologist at Imperial London,said: "The disturbing College leapt from animals into humans.?thing about this new strain is that it has "Because this is a new phenomenon we can't be sure how serious a problem it poses to humans. So we will have to be vigilant and hope it doesn't spread."
Around 60 per cent of all pigs in Holland are infected with ST398 and between 30 and 40 per cent of all pig farmers carry the bug - either on their skin or in their respiratory tract.
Most farmers are carriers of the bug and have no symptoms but they cans spread the bug to other people and can become infected themselves if they undergo surgery and the bug moves from their skin into a surgical wound.
Coilin Nunan, a spokesman for Soil Association, said: "It has probably got into the UK via raw pork or through our importation of Dutch bacon."
A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesman said:"We have carried out a study of our pig population and are awaiting the results."
-- Regards Pat Gardiner
Release the results of testing British pigs for MRSA and C.Diff now!
www.go-self-sufficient.com and http://animal-epidemics.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, 24 March 2009
British Chief Medical Officer warns about antibiotic use in livestock
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/Antibiotics-in-livestock-39threatens-humans39.5101083.jp
Antibiotics in livestock 'threatens humans'
Published Date: 24 March 2009
By Chris Benfield
THE Government's chief medical officer has warned that heavy use of antibiotics in livestock farming, as well as in general medicine, is a threat to human health.
Sir Liam Donaldson wrote in his annual report that "every unnecessary prescription written by a doctor, every uncompleted course of antibiotics and every inappropriate or unnecessary use in animals or agriculture is potentially a death warrant for a future patient.
"Use of antibiotics encouraged resistant bugs to flourish at the expense of less aggressive strains and cut the range of medicines still working – and the pharmaceuticals industry did not make new antibiotics fast enough to keep up, said Sir Liam.
He summed up: "The potency of one of the key weapons in the medical armoury is being eroded. The harm caused by each prescription is not visible at the time so society fails to take action."
When he published his report, last week, everyone concentrated on what he had to say about alcohol.
But campaigners against industrialised farming picked up on his call for a clampdown on antibiotics use and quoted it in a letter to Prime Minister Gordon Brown yesterday, in the course of drawing attention to a new strain of the "superbug" MRSA.
The Soil Association and Compassion In World Farming have posted a new film on the internet, Sick As A Pig, which argues that an MRSA bug known as ST398 has been transmitted to humans from pigs reared in intensive conditions in the Netherlands.
It is resistant to oxytetracycline, which is important against MRSA in humans.A handful of human cases was identified last year in Scotland.
But a Defra spokeswoman said yesterday: "At this stage we have no evidence which suggests that we should change our policy on national surveillance."
Antibiotics in livestock 'threatens humans'
Published Date: 24 March 2009
By Chris Benfield
THE Government's chief medical officer has warned that heavy use of antibiotics in livestock farming, as well as in general medicine, is a threat to human health.
Sir Liam Donaldson wrote in his annual report that "every unnecessary prescription written by a doctor, every uncompleted course of antibiotics and every inappropriate or unnecessary use in animals or agriculture is potentially a death warrant for a future patient.
"Use of antibiotics encouraged resistant bugs to flourish at the expense of less aggressive strains and cut the range of medicines still working – and the pharmaceuticals industry did not make new antibiotics fast enough to keep up, said Sir Liam.
He summed up: "The potency of one of the key weapons in the medical armoury is being eroded. The harm caused by each prescription is not visible at the time so society fails to take action."
When he published his report, last week, everyone concentrated on what he had to say about alcohol.
But campaigners against industrialised farming picked up on his call for a clampdown on antibiotics use and quoted it in a letter to Prime Minister Gordon Brown yesterday, in the course of drawing attention to a new strain of the "superbug" MRSA.
The Soil Association and Compassion In World Farming have posted a new film on the internet, Sick As A Pig, which argues that an MRSA bug known as ST398 has been transmitted to humans from pigs reared in intensive conditions in the Netherlands.
It is resistant to oxytetracycline, which is important against MRSA in humans.A handful of human cases was identified last year in Scotland.
But a Defra spokeswoman said yesterday: "At this stage we have no evidence which suggests that we should change our policy on national surveillance."
Friday, 20 March 2009
Film links MRSA to pigs and antibiotic use
Pig exposé claims MRSA link to antibiotics
Published: (20-03-2009)
Campaigners have launched a film which claims to expose the rise of a new strain of MRSA in pigs, and links its with the overuse of antibiotics on intensive farms.
The documentary, entitled, 'Sick as a pig', was filmed in the Netherlands and commissioned by the Soil Association in conjunction with Compassion in World Farming.
It claims 40% of Dutch pigs and up to 50% of Dutch pig farmers are now carrying the new strain, which is also spreading to the wider population. Although this type of MRSA was first detected in humans in the Netherlands as recently as 2003, it now causes almost one in three cases of MRSA treated in Dutch hospitals, the programme makers said.
It is not yet known whether any British pigs are affected by the new strain of MRSA (called ST398), it was claimed, since the results of testing, which was required by the EU and carried out in 2008, have not been made public.
Dutch scientists and government officials blame the widespread use of antibiotics in intensive pig farming for the rise and rapid spread of farm-animal MRSA.
The Soil Association said it has calculated that about 64% of all farm antibiotic use in the UK is in pig production.
It claims a Dutch government study has found that about 10% of Dutch pork is contaminated with MRSA, yet the UK has introduced no controls on imports, and the Food Standards Agency has refused to undertake any testing of meat for MRSA.
Richard Young, Soil Association policy adviser said: "The British Government has buried its head in the sand and is wasting a critical opportunity to prevent farm-animal MRSA getting a hold in the UK. Decisive action could reduce risks to human health, costs to the NHS and avoid another potentially devastating food-safety crisis.
“This new type of MRSA is spreading like wildfire across Europe, and we know it is transferring from farm animals to humans – with serious health impacts.”
“It is simply not acceptable to allow methods of food production which take away one of the biggest advances in medical science - our ability to treat and cure serious infections in the human population with antibiotics. We are sitting on a time-bomb here, and while most people have been kept in the dark about the issue, the Government's inaction will cost them dear for many years to come."
View the film on-line : http://www.green.tv/ecologist_sick_as_a_pig1
Published: (20-03-2009)
Campaigners have launched a film which claims to expose the rise of a new strain of MRSA in pigs, and links its with the overuse of antibiotics on intensive farms.
The documentary, entitled, 'Sick as a pig', was filmed in the Netherlands and commissioned by the Soil Association in conjunction with Compassion in World Farming.
It claims 40% of Dutch pigs and up to 50% of Dutch pig farmers are now carrying the new strain, which is also spreading to the wider population. Although this type of MRSA was first detected in humans in the Netherlands as recently as 2003, it now causes almost one in three cases of MRSA treated in Dutch hospitals, the programme makers said.
It is not yet known whether any British pigs are affected by the new strain of MRSA (called ST398), it was claimed, since the results of testing, which was required by the EU and carried out in 2008, have not been made public.
Dutch scientists and government officials blame the widespread use of antibiotics in intensive pig farming for the rise and rapid spread of farm-animal MRSA.
The Soil Association said it has calculated that about 64% of all farm antibiotic use in the UK is in pig production.
It claims a Dutch government study has found that about 10% of Dutch pork is contaminated with MRSA, yet the UK has introduced no controls on imports, and the Food Standards Agency has refused to undertake any testing of meat for MRSA.
Richard Young, Soil Association policy adviser said: "The British Government has buried its head in the sand and is wasting a critical opportunity to prevent farm-animal MRSA getting a hold in the UK. Decisive action could reduce risks to human health, costs to the NHS and avoid another potentially devastating food-safety crisis.
“This new type of MRSA is spreading like wildfire across Europe, and we know it is transferring from farm animals to humans – with serious health impacts.”
“It is simply not acceptable to allow methods of food production which take away one of the biggest advances in medical science - our ability to treat and cure serious infections in the human population with antibiotics. We are sitting on a time-bomb here, and while most people have been kept in the dark about the issue, the Government's inaction will cost them dear for many years to come."
View the film on-line : http://www.green.tv/ecologist_sick_as_a_pig1
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
New Outbreak at Charlottetown. P.E.I. Canada
I have been writing about this hospital for some time: look back in the archives for previous incidents including babies with MRSA.
They have pigs and have had circovirus epidemics in pigs on the island: the conditions that will produce MRSA and other superbugs epidemics in humans predicted the "Gardiner Hypothesis."
It looks as if the hospital is constantly being re-infected from the pig farms possibly via staff carriers.
They had tests on the staff last time, but seemed coy about releasing the results.
There have been so many infection scandals covered up in Canada that they are all walking on coals and know it too.
I'm really sorry for them but the Canadian public deserve honesty and openness.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/prince-edward-island/story/2009/03/10/pe-superbug-qeh.html
Charlottetown medical unit reopens after superbug causes lockdown
Last Updated: Tuesday, March 10, 2009 4:54 PM
Part of Charlottetown's Queen Elizabeth Hospital was locked down Monday afternoon and night, and has since reopened after a patient tested positive for a superbug.
'We're putting the admissions on reverse isolation procedures, which means they are isolated for their own protection.'— Rick Adams, Queen Elizabeth Hospital
Hospital officials are still trying to determine the source of the bacteria. All the patients in Unit 3 have been tested. In addition, environmental swabs have been done throughout the unit. It could take several days to get the results back.
Officials won't say which superbug, Vancomycin-resistant Enterococci (VRE) or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), was discovered Monday.
Unit 3 was reopened Tuesday, with special procedures in place to deal with new patients.
"For any admissions, we're putting the admissions on reverse isolation procedures, which means they are isolated for their own protection," said hospital executive director Rick Adams.
"They are being introduced to an environment where there may be antibiotic-resistant organisms, and the results of the tests are not back yet. The rooms have been thoroughly cleaned, so we're confident that as long as they are isolated in their rooms, precautions are certainly reasonable and adequate."
Adams said staff members have not been tested.
The hospital only recently declared the end of an outbreak of MRSA and VRE. The bacteria first showed up in the nursery last spring, and the hospital put severe restrictions on visitors to control the outbreak.
They have pigs and have had circovirus epidemics in pigs on the island: the conditions that will produce MRSA and other superbugs epidemics in humans predicted the "Gardiner Hypothesis."
It looks as if the hospital is constantly being re-infected from the pig farms possibly via staff carriers.
They had tests on the staff last time, but seemed coy about releasing the results.
There have been so many infection scandals covered up in Canada that they are all walking on coals and know it too.
I'm really sorry for them but the Canadian public deserve honesty and openness.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/prince-edward-island/story/2009/03/10/pe-superbug-qeh.html
Charlottetown medical unit reopens after superbug causes lockdown
Last Updated: Tuesday, March 10, 2009 4:54 PM
Part of Charlottetown's Queen Elizabeth Hospital was locked down Monday afternoon and night, and has since reopened after a patient tested positive for a superbug.
'We're putting the admissions on reverse isolation procedures, which means they are isolated for their own protection.'— Rick Adams, Queen Elizabeth Hospital
Hospital officials are still trying to determine the source of the bacteria. All the patients in Unit 3 have been tested. In addition, environmental swabs have been done throughout the unit. It could take several days to get the results back.
Officials won't say which superbug, Vancomycin-resistant Enterococci (VRE) or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), was discovered Monday.
Unit 3 was reopened Tuesday, with special procedures in place to deal with new patients.
"For any admissions, we're putting the admissions on reverse isolation procedures, which means they are isolated for their own protection," said hospital executive director Rick Adams.
"They are being introduced to an environment where there may be antibiotic-resistant organisms, and the results of the tests are not back yet. The rooms have been thoroughly cleaned, so we're confident that as long as they are isolated in their rooms, precautions are certainly reasonable and adequate."
Adams said staff members have not been tested.
The hospital only recently declared the end of an outbreak of MRSA and VRE. The bacteria first showed up in the nursery last spring, and the hospital put severe restrictions on visitors to control the outbreak.
Sunday, 8 March 2009
MRSA in Pigs - The Americans discuss while Britain covers up
The American pork and veterinary industries are now at least discussing the issue of MRSA and pigs and are moving far ahead of Britain where lies, intimidation and cover-up still rules.
They are trying to use science where Britain is still using pay-offs and ill deserved gongs to try to smother crimes against humanity. British vets cannot win - they will be exposed.
"We want to know the answer, if it's good or bad, we want to know sowe can deal with it and do what's right for our pigs, our workers andour consumers," Greiner said.
The Danish experience, with antibiotic use doubling after the ban on nontherapeutic antibiotics, echoes the slightly earlier British experience.
Britain deliberately tried to hide up the figures by changing the basis of collection and publication, but the Soil Association managed to unravel the situation although wrongly attributed the reason to wrongful use as a growth promoter.
The real reason for the massive increase in antibiotic use was the hidden 1999 British circovirus (PMWS) epidemic.
Once again the facts here are completely in accordance with the Gardiner Hypothesis: that MRSA in people follows Circovirus epidemics in pigs.
The Danes, Canadians and now Americans are following the same disastrous route, but the pressure is now building in the US. Hence this article.
The Americans are well on the way to starting to tackle the issue on the ground. They already know their pigs and pork carry MRSA st398 (and C.Diff) a knowledge deliberately denied to the British public about British pigs.
The Americans will then be searching for the source of the problems.They will be arriving in Britain shortly. Then the proverbial hits the fan.
British vets are rather naively hoping to get support and comfort from their American colleagues. Some chance!
The American vets will be dumping on the British to save their own skins.
http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/34533/
Pork Industry Says Antibiotics Are Necessary for Animal AgricultureSunday, March 08, 2009 :: Staff infoZine
By Heather Lockwood - Some scientists say nontherapeutic antibiotics used in animal agriculture are contributing to the growing problem of antibiotic-resistant disease, but the pork industry says these antibiotics are necessary.
Washington, D.C. - infoZine - Scripps Howard Foundation Wire - TheFood and Drug Administration puts all antibiotics used in animal agriculture through a "very vigorous approval process" that considers the safety of the animals, their human handlers, consumers and the environment, said Jennifer Greiner, a veterinarian and director of science and technology for the Pork Producers Council. She is the daughter of pork producers.
The FDA approves antibiotics in animal agriculture for four uses:treatment, prevention, bacterial control and growth promotion. The FDA considers all but growth promotion to be therapeutic uses.
"We truly believe 'nontherapeutic' is just a bad term. Any time you use an antibiotic, whether it be a lower dose or a higher dose, that antibiotic is going to kill some kind of bacteria," she said.
"All antibiotics have some sort of therapeutic value." Feeding low amounts of antibiotics daily to livestock, particularly young hogs, is a preventive measure "with some beneficial effects onthe gut," said Jim McKean, extension veterinarian at Iowa StateUniversity and associate director of the Iowa Pork Industry Center.
"There are health advantages for those animals receiving low levels ofwhat people call 'sub-therapeutic' antibiotics," McKean said. "There is not a clear pathway from the use in animals to a public health disease."
They were reacting to a Capitol Hill briefing last week about a study that found MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant disease, in swine and their human handlers for the first time in the U.S. Before that MRSA was found almost exclusively in hospitals. It is hard to treat, and the researchers said their study meant people who work with or eat meat could be at a low level of danger.
Greiner said Denmark's pork industry, which is about the same size as Iowa's, provides a good example of the consequences of a ban on nontherapeutic antibiotics.
Denmark outlawed the use of nontherapeutic antibiotics in animal agriculture in 1998, followed by the European Union.
"The amount of therapeutic antibiotics - treatment, prevention andcontrol - has doubled, more than doubled, since that ban went into effect," Greiner said, referring to Denmark's swine industry. "It's really been an animal care issue."
McKean called the increase in the use of therapeutic antibiotics afterthe ban "fairly substantial."
The National Pork Board has invested more than $200,000 into theresearch of MRSA and swine. Researchers from University of Minnesota, Ohio State University and University of Iowa are involved in the project.
"We want to know the answer, if it's good or bad, we want to know so we can deal with it and do what's right for our pigs, our workers and our consumers," Greiner said.
"We know that they are precious tools and we don't have very many antibiotics in our toolbox, so therefore,we want to make sure that we're using the ones that we have responsibly and judiciously."
"We just want to make certain that we have all our ducks in a row.MRSA is a quirky little bug to try to isolate in a lab and then runall those special tests on," Greiner said.
They are trying to use science where Britain is still using pay-offs and ill deserved gongs to try to smother crimes against humanity. British vets cannot win - they will be exposed.
"We want to know the answer, if it's good or bad, we want to know sowe can deal with it and do what's right for our pigs, our workers andour consumers," Greiner said.
The Danish experience, with antibiotic use doubling after the ban on nontherapeutic antibiotics, echoes the slightly earlier British experience.
Britain deliberately tried to hide up the figures by changing the basis of collection and publication, but the Soil Association managed to unravel the situation although wrongly attributed the reason to wrongful use as a growth promoter.
The real reason for the massive increase in antibiotic use was the hidden 1999 British circovirus (PMWS) epidemic.
Once again the facts here are completely in accordance with the Gardiner Hypothesis: that MRSA in people follows Circovirus epidemics in pigs.
The Danes, Canadians and now Americans are following the same disastrous route, but the pressure is now building in the US. Hence this article.
The Americans are well on the way to starting to tackle the issue on the ground. They already know their pigs and pork carry MRSA st398 (and C.Diff) a knowledge deliberately denied to the British public about British pigs.
The Americans will then be searching for the source of the problems.They will be arriving in Britain shortly. Then the proverbial hits the fan.
British vets are rather naively hoping to get support and comfort from their American colleagues. Some chance!
The American vets will be dumping on the British to save their own skins.
http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/34533/
Pork Industry Says Antibiotics Are Necessary for Animal AgricultureSunday, March 08, 2009 :: Staff infoZine
By Heather Lockwood - Some scientists say nontherapeutic antibiotics used in animal agriculture are contributing to the growing problem of antibiotic-resistant disease, but the pork industry says these antibiotics are necessary.
Washington, D.C. - infoZine - Scripps Howard Foundation Wire - TheFood and Drug Administration puts all antibiotics used in animal agriculture through a "very vigorous approval process" that considers the safety of the animals, their human handlers, consumers and the environment, said Jennifer Greiner, a veterinarian and director of science and technology for the Pork Producers Council. She is the daughter of pork producers.
The FDA approves antibiotics in animal agriculture for four uses:treatment, prevention, bacterial control and growth promotion. The FDA considers all but growth promotion to be therapeutic uses.
"We truly believe 'nontherapeutic' is just a bad term. Any time you use an antibiotic, whether it be a lower dose or a higher dose, that antibiotic is going to kill some kind of bacteria," she said.
"All antibiotics have some sort of therapeutic value." Feeding low amounts of antibiotics daily to livestock, particularly young hogs, is a preventive measure "with some beneficial effects onthe gut," said Jim McKean, extension veterinarian at Iowa StateUniversity and associate director of the Iowa Pork Industry Center.
"There are health advantages for those animals receiving low levels ofwhat people call 'sub-therapeutic' antibiotics," McKean said. "There is not a clear pathway from the use in animals to a public health disease."
They were reacting to a Capitol Hill briefing last week about a study that found MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant disease, in swine and their human handlers for the first time in the U.S. Before that MRSA was found almost exclusively in hospitals. It is hard to treat, and the researchers said their study meant people who work with or eat meat could be at a low level of danger.
Greiner said Denmark's pork industry, which is about the same size as Iowa's, provides a good example of the consequences of a ban on nontherapeutic antibiotics.
Denmark outlawed the use of nontherapeutic antibiotics in animal agriculture in 1998, followed by the European Union.
"The amount of therapeutic antibiotics - treatment, prevention andcontrol - has doubled, more than doubled, since that ban went into effect," Greiner said, referring to Denmark's swine industry. "It's really been an animal care issue."
McKean called the increase in the use of therapeutic antibiotics afterthe ban "fairly substantial."
The National Pork Board has invested more than $200,000 into theresearch of MRSA and swine. Researchers from University of Minnesota, Ohio State University and University of Iowa are involved in the project.
"We want to know the answer, if it's good or bad, we want to know so we can deal with it and do what's right for our pigs, our workers and our consumers," Greiner said.
"We know that they are precious tools and we don't have very many antibiotics in our toolbox, so therefore,we want to make sure that we're using the ones that we have responsibly and judiciously."
"We just want to make certain that we have all our ducks in a row.MRSA is a quirky little bug to try to isolate in a lab and then runall those special tests on," Greiner said.
Saturday, 7 March 2009
MRSA - Hong Kong, Phillippines and Indonesia
We can expect to see not just protectionism, but also
racism exploiting superbug issues.
Already Scandinavian hospitals are very wary of British patients, and
of their own returning nationals carrying disease into their
hospitals.
It does not hit the international media, because the complaints do not
appear in English language publications.
The problem of separating sensible and rational discrimination, for
medical reasons, from racist rabble rousing is going to inhibit
reporting and genuine scientific investigation.
The fact that Filipinos may be more vulnerable than Indonesians to
MRSA strongly supports the Gardiner Hypothesis for obvious reasons.
Mind you if you look back at history, enough scientists were always
either oblivious of or at the service of totalitarianism's worst
excesses.
It should not have come to this.
Britain's bent vets should have been called to account and struck off
years ago.
The RCVS bear a heavy share of the blame. They will have to be
abolished - and in disgrace too.
http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=446598&publicationSubCategoryId=202
Hong Kong Pinoys tagged 'superbug' carriers
By Marvin Sy Updated March 08, 2009 12:00 AM
MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang is looking into a report that
authorities in Hong Kong have tagged Filipinos as carriers of the
infectious methicilin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)
"superbug," a virulent strain that has emerged as a major health
threat, to see if this would warrant the filing of a diplomatic
protest against the Special Administrative Region of China.
Interviewed over state-run radio station dzRB, Press Secretary Cerge
Remonde took offense at the report, which was carried by the HK-based
free English newspaper The Standard last Feb. 25, which noted that
around 126,000 Filipinos in HK are 23 times more likely to be infected
by the superbug than the local Chinese populace.
The report cited figures reportedly coming from the Center for Health
Protection.
"They point out the infection is rare among Indonesian domestic
helpers, who number only about 3,000, less than their Filipino
counterparts," he said.
"The center's experts fear the disease could be getting carried here
from the Philippines, but authorities in Manila cannot supply data for
MRSA superbug rates," the report added.
The report also quoted Hong Kong University microbiologist Ho
Pak-leung as saying that the center had not seen the superbug in
Indonesian maids a year ago, "lending weight to the idea the bacteria
is carried from the Philippines."
"We are aware that Singapore, which has also hired a lot of Filipino
domestic helpers, faces the same problem," said the report, quoting
Ho.
Remonde said the report warrants close scrutiny as it involves the
dignity of Filipinos in general.
"I think we should take offense over that," he said.
An earlier controversy had implicated Filipino domestic helpers as
carriers of the deadly SARS virus and they were accused of bringing
the bacteria from the Philippines, but in actuality, SARS originated
from China.
"They should not treat Filipinos in this manner. We contribute a lot
to their economy too," Remonde said in Filipino.
After a review of the report is done, Remonde said the Philippine
government would seriously consider whether or not to file a
diplomatic protest.
Filipinos, according to Remonde, are very hygienic in nature and are
known to take baths even three times a day.
Several strains of the drug-resistant bacteria are generally harmless
to healthy people but can become lethal to hospital patients in
weakened conditions.
The MRSA bacteria slip into open wounds and through catheters or
ventilator tubes, typically causing pneumonia or bloodstream
infections.
racism exploiting superbug issues.
Already Scandinavian hospitals are very wary of British patients, and
of their own returning nationals carrying disease into their
hospitals.
It does not hit the international media, because the complaints do not
appear in English language publications.
The problem of separating sensible and rational discrimination, for
medical reasons, from racist rabble rousing is going to inhibit
reporting and genuine scientific investigation.
The fact that Filipinos may be more vulnerable than Indonesians to
MRSA strongly supports the Gardiner Hypothesis for obvious reasons.
Mind you if you look back at history, enough scientists were always
either oblivious of or at the service of totalitarianism's worst
excesses.
It should not have come to this.
Britain's bent vets should have been called to account and struck off
years ago.
The RCVS bear a heavy share of the blame. They will have to be
abolished - and in disgrace too.
http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=446598&publicationSubCategoryId=202
Hong Kong Pinoys tagged 'superbug' carriers
By Marvin Sy Updated March 08, 2009 12:00 AM
MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang is looking into a report that
authorities in Hong Kong have tagged Filipinos as carriers of the
infectious methicilin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)
"superbug," a virulent strain that has emerged as a major health
threat, to see if this would warrant the filing of a diplomatic
protest against the Special Administrative Region of China.
Interviewed over state-run radio station dzRB, Press Secretary Cerge
Remonde took offense at the report, which was carried by the HK-based
free English newspaper The Standard last Feb. 25, which noted that
around 126,000 Filipinos in HK are 23 times more likely to be infected
by the superbug than the local Chinese populace.
The report cited figures reportedly coming from the Center for Health
Protection.
"They point out the infection is rare among Indonesian domestic
helpers, who number only about 3,000, less than their Filipino
counterparts," he said.
"The center's experts fear the disease could be getting carried here
from the Philippines, but authorities in Manila cannot supply data for
MRSA superbug rates," the report added.
The report also quoted Hong Kong University microbiologist Ho
Pak-leung as saying that the center had not seen the superbug in
Indonesian maids a year ago, "lending weight to the idea the bacteria
is carried from the Philippines."
"We are aware that Singapore, which has also hired a lot of Filipino
domestic helpers, faces the same problem," said the report, quoting
Ho.
Remonde said the report warrants close scrutiny as it involves the
dignity of Filipinos in general.
"I think we should take offense over that," he said.
An earlier controversy had implicated Filipino domestic helpers as
carriers of the deadly SARS virus and they were accused of bringing
the bacteria from the Philippines, but in actuality, SARS originated
from China.
"They should not treat Filipinos in this manner. We contribute a lot
to their economy too," Remonde said in Filipino.
After a review of the report is done, Remonde said the Philippine
government would seriously consider whether or not to file a
diplomatic protest.
Filipinos, according to Remonde, are very hygienic in nature and are
known to take baths even three times a day.
Several strains of the drug-resistant bacteria are generally harmless
to healthy people but can become lethal to hospital patients in
weakened conditions.
The MRSA bacteria slip into open wounds and through catheters or
ventilator tubes, typically causing pneumonia or bloodstream
infections.
Friday, 23 January 2009
MRSA in Iowa pigs and pig workers
.
A ten year battle is now almost over for the writer. MRSA has been detected in significant numbers of US pigs and pig workers. He did his best to stop this happening.
Britain still refuses to release the results of testing her pigs.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0004258
Abstract
Background
Recent research has demonstrated that many swine and swine farmers in
the Netherlands and Canada are colonized with MRSA. However, no
studies to date have investigated carriage of MRSA among swine and
swine farmers in the United States (U.S.).
Methods
We sampled the nares of 299 swine and 20 workers from two different
production systems in Iowa and Illinois, comprising approximately
87,000 live animals. MRSA isolates were typed by pulsed field gel
electrophoresis (PFGE) using SmaI and EagI restriction enzymes, and by
multi locus sequence typing (MLST). PCR was used to determine SCCmec
type and presence of the pvl gene.
Results
In this pilot study, overall MRSA prevalence in swine was 49%
(147/299) and 45% (9/20) in workers. The prevalence of MRSA carriage
among production system A's swine varied by age, ranging from 36%
(11/30) in adult swine to 100% (60/60) of animals aged 9 and 12 weeks.
The prevalence among production system A's workers was 64% (9/14).
MRSA was not isolated from production system B's swine or workers.
Isolates examined were not typeable by PFGE when SmaI was used, but
digestion with EagI revealed that the isolates were clonal and were
not related to common human types in Iowa (USA100, USA300, and
USA400). MLST documented that the isolates were ST398.
Conclusions
These results show that colonization of swine by MRSA was very common
on one swine production system in the midwestern U.S., suggesting that
agricultural animals could become an important reservoir for this
bacterium. MRSA strain ST398 was the only strain documented on this
farm. Further studies are examining carriage rates on additional
farms.
A ten year battle is now almost over for the writer. MRSA has been detected in significant numbers of US pigs and pig workers. He did his best to stop this happening.
Britain still refuses to release the results of testing her pigs.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0004258
Abstract
Background
Recent research has demonstrated that many swine and swine farmers in
the Netherlands and Canada are colonized with MRSA. However, no
studies to date have investigated carriage of MRSA among swine and
swine farmers in the United States (U.S.).
Methods
We sampled the nares of 299 swine and 20 workers from two different
production systems in Iowa and Illinois, comprising approximately
87,000 live animals. MRSA isolates were typed by pulsed field gel
electrophoresis (PFGE) using SmaI and EagI restriction enzymes, and by
multi locus sequence typing (MLST). PCR was used to determine SCCmec
type and presence of the pvl gene.
Results
In this pilot study, overall MRSA prevalence in swine was 49%
(147/299) and 45% (9/20) in workers. The prevalence of MRSA carriage
among production system A's swine varied by age, ranging from 36%
(11/30) in adult swine to 100% (60/60) of animals aged 9 and 12 weeks.
The prevalence among production system A's workers was 64% (9/14).
MRSA was not isolated from production system B's swine or workers.
Isolates examined were not typeable by PFGE when SmaI was used, but
digestion with EagI revealed that the isolates were clonal and were
not related to common human types in Iowa (USA100, USA300, and
USA400). MLST documented that the isolates were ST398.
Conclusions
These results show that colonization of swine by MRSA was very common
on one swine production system in the midwestern U.S., suggesting that
agricultural animals could become an important reservoir for this
bacterium. MRSA strain ST398 was the only strain documented on this
farm. Further studies are examining carriage rates on additional
farms.
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