MRSA st398. Drug-resistant swine bacteria out of control in Denmark

It takes courage to speak out in pig-dependent Denmark, even when you are right. The Danes arrest journalists who expose farms with pig disease.

Future generations will ask why Britain failed to take any action over MRSA st398 (cc398) in Britain.

Britain's corrupt veterinary establishment are responsible for the long-standing cover-up of animal disease spreading to humans and will eventually be called to account.

The full 'Copenhagen Post news report can be found here.

Drug-resistant swine bacteria out of control, says professor

The danger is no longer just limited to those in the pig business

May 30, 2014
08:57

by Ray Weaver

An outbreak of the multidrug-resistant swine bacteria MRSA CC 398 at a nursing home has at least one researcher warning that its spread must be stopped.

“Agriculture has consistently argued that the pig bacteria is a safety problem that can only infect those who work in the stables,” Professor Hans Jørn Kolmos told DR Nyheder.

“Now we see a growing number of cases among people with no contact to the profession, and thus the situation is out of control.”

Fødevarestyrelsen and Sundhedsstyrelsen – the food and drug administration and the health department – have given up trying to locate the pig farms that are infected...

 ...Kolmos said that strategy is bound to fail.

“The bacteria is increasingly infecting ordinary Danes without any contact with the industry, so you cannot stop the spread by simply screening those in contact with the industry when they go to the hospital.”  ...

...Norway getting it right...

...(to)  try to limit the spread while there is still time,” said Kolmos.

Britain suspected of exporting TB diseased alpacas to Norway

This is ridiculous. We have all known for years that these camelids in Britain have practically all been badly infected with bovine TB. What the hell are we doing exporting them?

And what is Norway doing allowing them in?

That's not international trade: that is international veterinary stupidity.

Full Farmers Guardian article here.

Norway investigates suspected TB in imported alpacas

29 May 2014 | By Alistair Driver

THE Norwegian veterinary authorities are investigating a suspected case of bovine TB in alpacas imported from southern England in autumn 2013...

Germany - Hepatitis E in Blood Transfusions

There is little surprise in this report, published yesterday.

We have been watching, recording, collating and publishing the HEV situation in pigs and pig people in Britain and elsewhere for some years, but it will send shivers through a UK pig and veterinary industry that was already culling large numbers of pigs in Suffolk with swine dysentery in the last couple of weeks.

There is plenty of information on the Hepatitis E situation in the UK and NHS investigations on this blog over years: use the search box on the top left.

We give just a few selected quotes from Eurosurveillance, as always read the whole report here.


Eurosurveillance, Volume 19, Issue 21, 29 May 2014
Rapid communications

TRANSFUSION-TRANSMITTED HEPATITIS E IN GERMANY, 2013

D Huzly1, M Umhau2, D Bettinger3, T Cathomen2, F Emmerich2, P Hasselblatt3, H Hengel1, R Herzog2, O Kappert4, S Maassen4, E Schorb5, C Schulz-Huotari2, R Thimme3, R Unmüssig4, J J Wenzel6, M Panning ()1

Institute for Virology, University Medical Center, Freiburg, Germany
Institute for Cell and Gene Therapy, University Medical Center,
Freiburg, Germany
Department of Medicine II, University Medical Center, Freiburg,
Germany
Public Health Office, Freiburg, Germany
Department of Medicine I, University Medical Center, Freiburg, Germany
Institute of Clinical Microbiology and Hygiene, Regensburg University
Medical Center, Regensburg, Germany

...HEV recently emerged as a transfusion-transmissible pathogen, with reports from France, the United Kingdom, and Japan [2-4]. In Europe, the vast majority of autochthonous HEV infections are caused by HEV genotype 3 (gt-3) and are linked to the consumption of contaminated food. ...

...An estimated 30–40% of blood products in Germany were transfused to immunocompromised patients and these patients are at risk of developing chronic HEV gt-3 infection with increased mortality [5]. Sequence analysis of HEV strains from the Czech Republic, Germany and the Netherlands showed close homology indicating a geographically confined circulation [8]. This is supported by the high degree of sequence identity of our and recent Czech and Dutch sequences. Zoonotic transmission from pigs to humans seems to be the major mode of infection, but occupational exposure to pigs was not reported in our case [6]...

Denmark: Three Deaths from Drug-Resistant “Pig MRSA”

The title is serious enough, but the fact that Danish journalists appear to have been prosecuted for making it public should make British blood run cold.

Even more frightening is that we all knew about both MRSA st398 in pigs and journalists being prosecuted on the British newsgroup uk.business.agriculture. "Journalists charged in Denmark for
disclosing MRSA st398 information" 25th Jan 2013.

The writer, heavily targeted, harassed and abused for giving evidence to Britain's Parliament on state veterinary crime, published.

You can find all the articles on MRSA st398 (cc398) in pigs by searching uk.business.agriculture on Google Groups or on my blog, details below.

Maybe Britain needs a First amendment to protect free speech from state sponsored criminals too?

Anyway, here is the inimitable Maryn McKenna author of "Superbug" on the trail. Be sure to read in full.


Superbug
Denmark: Three Deaths from Drug-Resistant “Pig MRSA”

BY MARYN MCKENNA   05.12.14


A troubling and also kind of odd story came out of Denmark this weekend. In a court proceeding, a microbiologist has disclosed that three residents of the country who had no known connection to farming died of MRSA infections caused by ST398, the livestock-associated strain of drug-resistant staph that first appeared among pig farmers in the Netherlands in 2004 and has since moved through Europe, Canada and the United States.

If the report is correct — and sources have told me it is, but I’ve seen no data to confirm it — it reinforces the concern that bacteria which become resistant because of antibiotic use on farms can move off farms and affect the health of people who have no connection to farming...

...The first way in which this is odd is that this story emerged not from government public health data but during the trial of two journalists, who in 2010 disclosed the names of farms that had been found to be harboring ST398 (alternatively called CC398). The names were published in a long, tough investigative article that accused the government of capitulating to the agricultural industry by gathering
data on the presence of MRSA — which was very rare in Denmark — but not publishing it. The journalists, Kjeld Hansen and Nils Mulvad, are being prosecuted for violating the farmers’ privacy. (As a US journalist grateful every day for the First Amendment, the prosecution disturbs me greatly. William Heisel at Reporting on Health has also written about this.)