More MRSA, and different too, in Swiss pigs

.

Rates of MRSA in Swiss pigs are increasing, including ST49 for the first time.

But Britain continues to maintain its miraculous absence of MRSA of any kind in British pigs.

Even though the agricultural ministry has been forced belatedly, after nearly two years silence, to admit MRSA in the milk, but pigs? Never!

Aren’t we lucky fellows to have such marvellous veterinarians?

They are so good, they don’t even need to look.

And when they do find any, it will all be the fault of filthy foreigners and their filthy pork and happened last week.

It's always like that in Britain.

And everyone will pretend to believe them, as they line up to collect the gongs and sinecures given as a reward for loyalty to the vetocracy and a reminder to keep their mouths firmly shut.

Wake up England! Your veterinarians are endangering and disgracing you yet again.

Full report from 7thspace.com, here

Extracts:

The increase of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and the presence of an unusual sequence type ST49 in slaughter pigs in Switzerland

In years past, methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) has been frequently detected in pigs in Europe, North America and Asia.

Recent, yet sporadic studies have revealed a low occurrence of MRSA in Switzerland. In 2009, a monitoring survey of the prevalence and genetic diversity of methicillin-resistant S.aureus (MRSA) in slaughter pigs in Switzerland was conducted using methods recommended by the EU guidelines, and using a sampling strategy evenly distributed throughout the year and representative of the Swiss slaughter pig population.

Monitoring should determine if the overall prevalence of MRSA in the entire country is increasing over the years and if specific multi-resistant MRSA clones are spreading over the country.

Results: In 2009, the nasal cavities of eight out of 405 randomly selected pigs were positive for MRSA, representing a prevalence of 2.0%...

The following year, 23 out of 392 pigs were positive for MRSA 5.9%

Three multilocus sequence types (ST), four spa types and two types of staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) elements were detected...

...Conclusions: This study is the first to describe the presence of MRSA ST49 in slaughter pigs, and to demonstrate a significant and nearly three-fold increase of MRSA prevalence in pigs within two years.

The presence of a specific clonal lineage of MRSA from Switzerland suggests that it has been selected in Swiss pig husbandry. Effective hygiene measures should be enhanced within the entire pig production chain to suppress the spread of these pathogens into the community.

Author: Gudrun OvereschSabina ButtnerAlexandra RossanoVincent Perreten
Credits/Source: BMC Veterinary Research 2011, 7:30

New superbug from British pigs

.
The powerful and well-connected British Soil Association representing organic farmers have begun campaigning on yet another new antibiotic resistant superbug emerging from pigs and infecting humans.

Monophasic Salmonella Typhimurium does not trip off the tongue, but it has a particularly high attack rate in children and old people and is also highly resistant to antibiotics, limiting treatment options.

Predictably, the British government says “Exact statistics on the number of cases in the UK are not available.”

But they recently were caught hiding up MRSA in milk for almost two years and have long refused to do proper tests on the sick British pig herds for MRSA, C.Diff and Hepatitus E (see multiple previous posts on this blog.)

Although the writer does  not always agree with the Soil Association or their agenda, they are to be congratulated on the pulling together of this dangerous story and publicising the risks.

The risks have been created by a dangerous veterinary industry supervised by corrupt  government veterinarians.

The full Soil Association media release, with sources, can be found here

New salmonella superbug threat from intensive pig farms

23 June 2011

The Soil Association is calling on the Government to take immediate action to limit the spread of a deadly new type of salmonella which is passing from pigs to humans. Known as ‘monophasic salmonella typhimurium’, it is has enhanced ability to cause infections and 'a particularly high attack rate in children and old people', leading to 'an unusually high rate of hospitalisation'.[1] It is also highly resistant to antibiotics, limiting treatment options.

Several different strains have already emerged and caused numerous infections in humans and at least one death.[1] Professor John Trelfall from the Health Protection Agency has acknowledged that it appears ‘to be associated with pigs and pig products’.[2] German scientists have found clear evidence it is being transmitted from pigs to humans ‘along the food chain’, and called for interventions at a farm level to prevent human infection.[3]

The Soil Association wants a panel of experts to undertake an urgent review of the mounting evidence that specific action is needed to address the serious threat posed by the new type of salmonella, and evidence that all salmonella can spread directly from pigs to people, as well as via food. It also wants Caroline Spelman, Secretary of State for the Environment, to intervene and stop any new intensive pig farms being built near residential areas at least until the panel has made recommendations....

...Exact statistics on the number of cases in the UK are not available, but the Government’s main advisory committee on antibiotic resistance in animals has warned that it ‘appeared currently to be the most predominant type of Salmonella in Europe’.[5] The European Food Safety Authority has described its incidence as ‘epidemic’.[1] The available evidence strongly suggests that it is increasing in pigs and humans in the UK.[1] & [6] There have also been cases in British cattle.[6]

Most monophasic salmonella from pigs are multiresistant to at least four families of antibiotics, but the long-feared development of resistance to modern cephalosporin antibiotics in salmonella has already been found as well on at least one British pig farm[7] The European Food Safety Authority has warned that resistance to these antibiotics could lead to treatment failures. They also warned that even the routine use of antibiotics such as tetracyclines, the most widely used antibiotics in pig feed, not only promotes resistance but also increases the spread and persistence in pigs of these resistant strains.[1]...

...Flies and cockroaches are known to carry salmonella and other pathogens found on pigs, and American scientists have said that because these insects can move freely between animal waste on farms and nearby houses there is ‘increasing concern in the medical and public-health community about insect pests directly associated with the spread of bacterial pathogens and antibiotic-resistant microorganisms with animal production systems to residential settings’.[8] This is particularly significant because Dr Rob Davies, from the Veterinary Laboratories Agency, believes that monophasic salmonella typhimurium may have ‘the ability to be shed in large numbers in faeces compared with other strains’.[9] Flies were a particular problem on one of Midland Pig Producers' other pig farms when journalists visited it last year.[10]

According to Dr Davies, monophasic salmonella typhimurium is one of several salmonella strains to have evolved in pigs.[10] Furthermore, another very recently published government study found that 28% of British pigs tested positive for salmonella. 92% of these showed resistance to antibiotics with 67% being multiresistant.[11] A British government survey in 2002 found that one in every twelve sausages (8.6%) were contaminated with salmonella.[12]

Research has shown that pigs raised indoors excrete higher levels of salmonella in their manure than do outdoor-raised pigs, both organic and non-organic.[13] Many scientific studies also show that salmonella in pigs increases with herd size.[14]

MRSA in Milk. British government cover-up

.
The British government did know that MRSA had been found in British milk nearly two years ago but suppressed the news. No warning was issued.

People have been infected, presumably either during the milking process or drinking the 2 percent of raw  (unpasteurised) milk still available in Britain.

The evidence comes directly from the House of Commons record where the Minister has been questioned by an alert MP last week.

Here

is the extract from Hansard ( the official record of the proceedings of Parliament )

Our previous articles cover the development of this scandal.

here  3 June 2011

MRSA in British milk and farm workers 

and here 6 June 2011

E. Coli in Sprouts and MRSA in milk

and here 18 June 2011

MRSA in Milk, Battle breaks out in Britain. Crooks versus Cranks.

Cancer charities investigate MRSA in pigs and pig people

.
There is no direct link between cancer and MRSA that we know of, but the fact remains that cancer patients are at greater risk of premature death from antibiotic resistant disease because of damaged immune systems.

Even to reduce it to monetary terms: massive sums are spent on cancer treatments, all wasted if the patients die from MRSA.

So US cancer charities start investigating MRSA in pigs and pig people.

Who would have thought it possible?

But it makes perfect sense.

They are going to be able to blame a gang of corrupt veterinarians for covering up swine disease and creating new forms of MRSA by squandering antibiotics to get desperately sick pigs into the food chain.

You can read the full document here

Livestock Contact and MRSA in Rural Areas

This study is currently recruiting participants.

Verified on May 2011 by National Institutes of Health Clinical Center
(CC)
First Received on June 16, 2011. No Changes Posted
Sponsor:  National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Information provided by:  National Institutes of Health Clinical
Center (CC)
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:  NCT01375621
 Purpose
Background:

- MRSA is a type of bacteria that causes serious health problems. It can cause severe infections and is difficult to treat. MRSA has been found in a high number of people who work with some kinds of
livestock, such as pigs.

Researchers want to study people in rural areas, where more people work with or around livestock. They want to see if MRSA is more common or causes more serious infections in these areas.

Objectives:

- To look at the relationship between livestock handling (especially pigs) and MRSA bacteria in people in rural areas...

The pigs are making us ill.

.
The row about pig health is now fully under way in Britain. 

Soon a full, probably international, investigation will be launched into what has been going on in Britain, for the last 15 years.

It’s a shame it took the cranks to expose the crooks. That will cloud the issue. This is not really about alternative farming systems: it could be, it should be, but it isn’t.

This is about serious organised crime, protected, and aided, by the British civil service, that may well have killed thousands in misery and spread disease about the world.

Those responsible manipulated and protected both the crooks and the cranks quite indiscriminately but they have now lost control.

It was one of those crime waves that inevitably would be exposed eventually. There are even elements of ponzi schemes, pyramid selling and time-share scams.

Had the crimes been dealt with properly, instead of covered up, the issue would have hit the mainstream media long ago. The dangers to human health and to farming would have been stopped.

And that is the way to reform: a thorough investigation and public criminal proceedings including the actions of British and other civil servants stripped of crown immunity.

What will emerge will shock all and permanently change Britain and some other countries. It will change animal husbandry everywhere

The writer is going to have to spend the rest of his life explaining why he did not do more.

The complete, long, Daily Mail article complete with pictures is here

There is much to disagree with in the article, but the central fact: that the pigs are stuffed with antibiotics and that that poses a known, and probably realised, human health risk is undoubtedly accurate.

Giant factory pig farms aren't just morally wrong. They're making us ill

By DOMINIC WEST

Last updated at 12:24 AM on 19th June 2011

When public figures speak out about animal welfare issues, their views tend to be received with weary sighs. But the way we treat our livestock is not just a moral question. Industrial farming is making us ill...


...Thankfully, people power is on the march.


...I heard locals' fears of increased heavy lorry movements, noise, smells and the health risks from the antibiotics often given to intensively farmed pigs to keep them healthy in their overcrowded and stressful environment.

Some villagers want to move away but can't sell their houses....


...Right now, half of all antibiotics in the UK are used on farm animals and 60 per cent of those are given to pigs. The overuse of antibiotics in intensive farming means that these creatures provide a breeding ground for the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of diseases such as MRSA, E.coli and salmonella, which pass from animals to humans.

Ominously, scientists have just discovered a new MRSA strain, said to be present on as many as three per cent of dairy farms in the UK. There have already been 12 cases.

Factory farms are central to all this. When statistics at one hospital in the Netherlands were analysed, it was found that 80 per cent of MRSA cases there were caused by a strain which had evolved on factory pig farms and which is now spreading globally to other farms and from animals to humans too...

...What really bothers me is that even though these health concerns are well known, what Europe's politicians are doing is worse than nothing: the EU is encouraging factory farms...

...I also fear that the small farms dotted across our countryside, which, like the one run by my uncle have for centuries provided us with good food without the need for antibiotic drugs, will simply disappear...

MRSA in Milk, Battle breaks out in Britain. Crooks versus Cranks.

.
Defra, Britain's infamous agricultural ministry, must have remotely disabled the writer's copy and paste. We are not serious, but strange things have become normal around the writer.

It has broken on this particular site today. Even "select all" will not work.

And what a one to miss catching for posterity!

The important National Farmers Union takes on the Independent newspaper this morning over MRSA in Livestock criticising their front page and batch of articles yesterday.

As you can see, the NFU evade answering the allegations.

The writer is now willing to bet that someone now finds more MRSA in Britain and says it is a recent introduction by filthy foreigners.

And to remind you, if you did not know already, that Britain has had MRSA for years, but our hopelessly corrupt government veterinarians brilliantly managed never to find any.

Almost alone amongst civilised nations we were pure and unsullied by MRSA until two separate investigations, one Irish, one British report it in milk on the same day.

Now they all in the kind of mess that could and should have been dealt with years ago by putting Scotland Yard, Britain's top police, into Defra's veterinary deception squad.

It's the cranks versus the crooks in Britain. Neither will win, but decent well balanced people might just come through the middle.

American readers should note that your Maryn McKenna is very creditably representing you in having a major article published in the Independent last week even before this less impressive batch based on information from Britain's well connected and pampered organic industry.

You can find an eleven year history of this scandal on this blog and associated publications

Nobody should miss out on this latest development. It matters, really matters.

and here it is.

E. Coli in Sprouts and MRSA in milk

.
The writer is delighted to see Maryn McKenna’s article appearing in Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

We need her voice in this desert of deceit and disinformation!

Her message is frightening for Britain, mentioning, as it does, English hospitals and incidents by name. She explains complex science in a way we can understand and outlines the issues that have to be tackled.

That two new forms of superbugs cause serious disasters, in one weekend, should be a wake up call to all those apologists for bad science and veterinary corruption.

Maryn McKenna correctly identifies a series of problems escalating around 2001. This  coincided with Britain's disastrous Foot and Mouth outbreak following Classical Swine Fever and Circovirus epidemics in pigs in the previous two years.

Three epidemics in three years was not coincidence, and anyone tracking this blog and the earlier work carefully preserved on his website here and the newsgroup uk.business.agriculture available  here and via Google Groups, will see the connections being made as the situation on the farms and in the hospitals deteriorated over the past decade.

Good science was ignored and decent people persecuted for trying to stop the rot.  People died whilst a greedy corrupt veterinary industry was looting the countryside and using its vast drug profits to pump out disinformation.

You should read the Guardian article in full here for much more that needs illuminating.

The reason why this deadly E coli makes doctors shudder

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 5 June 2011 20.03 BST

It is past time for health authorities to curb the antibiotic misuse that created the resistance of this aberrant E Coli strain...

...The massive outbreak of E coli O104 in Europe has infected more than 1,800 people and left more than 500 with the potentially deadly complication known as haemolytic-uremic syndrome. It has leapfrogged borders to at least 13 countries and killed about 20 of its victims. As health authorities try to trace the outbreak to a food that can be removed from the market, it has focused international attention on the complex paths that agricultural produce follows in an era of global trade.

One aspect of the epidemic, though, has received little notice: this aberrant strain is resistant to multiple classes of antibiotics. Among all the urgent issues raised by this outbreak, that drug resistance should ring the loudest warning bells – and prompt serious consideration of curbing the vast overuse of antibiotics that has created it...

..But what is more important is that resistance factors forming O104's new protections have been burgeoning in Europe for at least a decade. Their movement into this strain demonstrates how freely resistance factors can leapfrog among organisms once they emerge. And that should underline how important it is to slow down the evolution of antibiotic resistance, by cutting back inappropriate use of antibiotics in everyday medicine and on farms...

...Because they primarily affected patients in intensive care units, these strains caused little alarm in the outside world. But after about 2001 these resistance factors moved into everyday life and started causing havoc. In a kind of genetic hand-shaking manoeuvre that bacteria perform all the time, the resistance genes moved into some strains of E coli – not the food-borne, toxin-making form, but rather the common variety that causes urinary tract infections and other normally minor illnesses.

Suddenly hospitals in Birmingham and Shropshire began reporting significant outbreaks of ESBL E coli infections, and doctors who don't practise in hospitals began talking to each other about young women experiencing recurrent bladder infections that few drugs could affect. This wasn't only a phenomenon of the 2000s. In March 2010, the University Hospital of North Staffordshire experienced an outbreak of ESBL Klebsiella in which a patient died.

Where are these resistance factors coming from? ...

...That excessive exposure happens any time anyone takes antibiotics for a health problem for which they are inappropriate, such as colds or ear infections. It happens even more when low-dose antibiotics are deployed by the tonne in large-scale agriculture, without any surveillance to report back what bugs are emerging. Researchers in Spain and the US say there are links between large-scale agriculture and the emergence of ESBL: they have found bacteria harbouring that resistance in the meat of supermarket chickens...

...But we already know where the antibiotic resistance in this outbreak has come from – and given bacteria's promiscuous propensity to trade genetic material, we know that O104 is keeping that resistance going by harbouring it and handing it off to yet another species. It's past time that governments and health authorities do what they can to slow down the evolution of drug resistance, by curbing the antibiotic misuse that brings it into the world.

MRSA in British milk and farm workers

.
The astonishing news, that MRSA has been found in British cow's milk, floods the media this morning, threatening even to eclipse the German E.Coli disaster in coverage.

The reports are frequently contradictory with even British government agencies straying from the facts and with the main human health body seemingly claiming to have seen no human patients.

That's what comes of allowing PR obsessed veterinarians to run out of control in Britain: disaster and chaos.

There is no reliable report yet to direct readers seeking information. Even the BBC only reports competing versions.

However, it is pretty well agreed that pasteurised milk is not a risk to those drinking it, and that is almost all of us.

It seems sure that the problem goes beyond Britain. Ireland admits the problem too and others including Denmark are mentioned.

The MRSA is a new strain and, like the German E.Coli 0104, very different from what has been seen before.

The veterinary industry says it is spreading from people to cows, everybody else thinks the cows are infecting people, usually farm workers.

As far as the veterinarians are concerned, well they would say that, wouldn't they?

They know that, in Britain, they are in the most serious trouble and that their involvement in various criminal activities will become the subject of major police investigations.

The writer first complained, of government veterinarians faking tests during an epidemic, to Parliament in Westminster and the EU in Brussels, over a decade ago. Since he has been threatened, harassed, libelled and been the victim of various related crimes.

You have to recall that even a former British Agriculture Minister is languishing in jail albeit unrelated to animal health, but the formerly impossible is now an every day occurrence in Britain's creaking democracy.

The veterinarians did not manage to silence the writer. The lawyers are now gathering and they will be seeking compensation for all those hurt and damaged so far: the farm workers infected. The veterinary liability insurers are in for a rough time.

This is the biggest scandal of the 21st Century so far, and more is to come.

E.Coli 0104, in British livestock too?

.
The WHO (World Health Organisation) says it is a new mutant strain never seen anywhere before. The Chinese agree.

Has it been seen in Britain before? Was it in livestock?

This is currently on a British public health authority site. here

PHA warn of E. coli O104 (VTEC) outbreak in Germany

Friday, 27 May 2011 -

...The strain of VTEC infection suspected in this outbreak is O104
which is a rare strain of the infection which is seldom seen in the
UK. In England there have been two cases in German nationals. Other
European countries, notably Sweden, have also reported cases of HUS
and bloody diarrhoea among returning travellers. Early studies suggest
a link to raw tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce....


As you can see the reference is ambiguous and could mean virtually anything.

As the first language of the authority is English, we can safely presume that this is an accurate, deliberate and carefully worded statement on such an important subject.

In normal usage, we would have thought "seldom" means "infrequent,over a period" and the two (now more) German travellers are very recent.

There have been many animal and human health scandals in Britain: not again surely?

Classical Swine Fever: Listen Lithuania!

The writer is getting a sense of déjà vu. This is where he first came in eleven years ago: Classical Swine Fever- and the 2000 British epidemic, when government veterinarians faked test results.

Faced with a potentially disasterous problem, the Lithuanian state veterinary service has adopted the British state veterinary motto:

“Blame someone else, preferably innocent.”

with an interesting twist:

“Blame somebody else, preferably non-existent.”

 It has the advantage that you can’t find somebody who does not exist. They cannot protest their innocence. The innocent can bite back, as they have in Britain.

Lithuania has probably imported live pigs from somewhere inadvisable, or bought some infected semen perfectly legally and all sanctioned and organised by vets, to their profit too.

We will never find out of course, until a whistle blower emerges. That’s why whistle-blowers matter and why there are such efforts everywhere to silence them.

The writer knows. He did it, over Swine fever too, to our Parliament in Westminster and the European Union. 

He took the consequences:  it was tough at times.

He didn’t think such things could happen in England., but they can. It is very dangerous to whistle-blow on Britain's corrupt veterinary establishment.

Decent countries protect whistle-blowers from hardened criminals in government employ. If you don’t, you become a third rate criminalised backwater on your way down.

You get the governance you deserve in a country riddled with animal diseases : diseases that may also represent risks to human health.

The writer hopes Lithuania is listening and insists on getting the truth into the open.

The full report can be reached here

Lithuania bans live pig trade after swine fever cases

Published: 7:37AM Thursday June 02, 2011 Source: Reuters

Lithuania has banned the export and import of live pigs after swine fever was reported in the centre of the country.

The outbreak was registered at a 16,000-pig farm...

..."We are still trying to establish the source of the outbreak...

We don't rule out that the infection was spread intentionally," Jonas Milius, the head of veterinary service, told journalists.

"We asked the general prosecutor office to look into it," he added. He did not elaborate on why authorities suspected a criminal act....


.