We have always doubted the results of the EU imposed survey for MRSA in pigs in 2009-2010, especially in Britain.
Even to a non-scientist, barn dust samples hardly seemed adequate. With Britain’s Ministry’s record of faking results, the completely negative results in Britain were, frankly, incredible.
Britain’s government veterinarians had a better reason not to find MRSA than the others: self-preservation.
That's why we have been calling for independent audited testing on a matter that may have serious public health risks
But there was no reason to suspect that the countries finding and reporting MRSA might be wildly under-reporting MRSA in their pigs, for whatever reason.
Finland has just come clean with 30 to 40 times more MRSA in their pigs than previously admitted and they even give us a nice presentation with the following conclusion.
Full presentation here
Lasse Nuotio, Finnish Food Safety Authority Evira
Helsinki, Finland
The sensitivity of the approach to detect farms with a minority of animals colonized by MRSA is not known
The sampling was not satisfactorily random in either category
Nevertheless, the true prevalence of MRSA positive pig farms may well have been 15 –20% in 2009 –2010
What we would at least like to know:-
are there common sources
what is the typical within-farm prevalence of MRSA indifferent types of farms and in different age groups
how long does MRSA persist in different types of farms
