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It has just been announced that MRSA st398 - so called "piggy MRSA" (also termed MRSA cc398 on the continent of Europe) has been found in American meat. It had previous been found in Canadian meat, but not in the USA.
Britain seems to be the only major country with pig production in the Northern Hemisphere that continues to claim that its pigs and pork are MRSA free.
It might be fairer to say "have not withdrawn their claim that British pigs and pork are MRSA free." It has not been repeated for a couple of years, but equally no admission or correction has been made.
MRSA st398 has been found, in children, in Scotland some years ago, but nothing in pigs or pork.
What you won't look for properly, you won't find.
Defra, Britain's infamous agriculture ministry, will not be able to hold out for much longer. They will have to provide data for Britain and an explanation for the long delay.
Tara Smith's explanation of the meaning of the American research is here, with the promise of more to come. Be sure to read the complete blog entry in full here
This is a very important research for Britain too.
MRSA found in Iowa meat
Posted on: November 9, 2011 9:00 AM, by Tara C. Smith
I've blogged previously on a few U.S. studies which investigated methicillin-resistantStaphylococcus aureus in raw meat products (including chicken, beef, turkey, and pork). This isn't just a casual observation as one who eats food--I follow this area closely as we also have done our own pair of food sampling investigations here in Iowa, and will be doing a much larger, USDA-funded investigation of the issue over the next 5 years...
...Why am I rehashing all of this? We have a new paper out examining S. aureus in Iowa meats--and did find for the first time MRSA ST398, as well as MRSA USA300 and MSSA strains including both presumptive "human" and "animal" types. This was just a pilot study and numbers are still fairly small, but enough to say that yes, this is here in the heart of flyover country as well as in the other areas already examined.
