The antibiotic resistance scandal in British livestock gets ever worse.
A reasonable interpretation would be that Defra, Britain's massive dubious agricultural ministry, are manipulating or holding back information from the ARHAI.
The function of the ARHAI is explained here in the national archives
Advisory Committee on Antimicrobial Resistance and Healthcare Associated Infection (ARHAI)
The Advisory Committee on Antimicrobial Resistance and Healthcare Associated Infection (ARHAI) was established in April 2007 to provide practical and scientific advice to the Government on strategies to minimise the incidence of healthcare associated infections and to maintain the effectiveness of antimicrobial agents in the treatment and prevention of microbial infections in man and animals.
We start here at a Defra website
Defra Antimicrobial Resistance Co-ordination (DARC) Group
MRSA Sub-Group 15
the Meeting
Report of meeting held on 1 February 2012
…7. Human Cases of MRSA ST398 under investigation in Northern England
7.1 Members were provided with some background to this agenda item.
7.2 A member commented that in relation to this agenda item there was nothing of particular issue in terms of public health. However, it would be useful to have nationally agreed communication lines as well as local ones. A member queried if there would be any issues if they passed information on these cases to ARHAI and were informed that there shouldn't be any issues, however they would be provided with a few summary lines that they could use at the ARHAI meeting.
7.3 Regarding these cases, the source of the MRSA was still being explored.
7.4 It was considered that currently without the additional information there was nothing further for this group to comment on under this item at the moment.
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Now if we were members of the ARHAI, we would be (to put it very mildly) besieging Defra to find out just what they have been holding back from us or why anyone needed a "with a few summary lines " to bring the matter to my attention.
If I did not get an immediate plausible explanation, my resignation would be in the post and I would be briefing journalists.
The membership of the ARHAI is here again from the National Archives Are they getting the information they should be getting?
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likely to be out of date.
