Following Hurricane Florence, North Carolina residents face health risks from livestock waste that’s been spilling from flooded containment enclosures.
Food Safety & Nutrition
WHO releases new guidelines on antibiotics in food animals; USDA muddies the waters
In its release of new guidelines that recommend big reductions in antibiotic use in food animals, WHO cited the presence of extensive literature on this topic. So why did USDA put out a statement with a misleading description of the guidelines’ scientific basis?
Infectious Diseases & Vaccines
“Nightmare bacteria” with quick-spreading capabilities found on US pig farm
Last week, the journal Antibiotic Agents and Chemotherapy posted an accepted manuscript that contains some very bad news: an easy-to-spread gene that makes bacteria resistant to an important class of antibiotics has been found in 2015 samples from a US pig farm.
Infectious Diseases & Vaccines
WHO warns antibiotic resistance is a “serious, worldwide threat to public health”
For the first time, the World Health Organization has examined antimicrobial resistance, and the grim findings won’t be surprising to anyone who’s been following this issue.
Antibiotic-resistant infections kill 23,000 people in the US and sicken two million each year, and the problem is getting worse, warns a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency ranks 18 microorganisms according to their threat to health and the economy, and categorizes three as urgent.
Environmental Health
Study: Industrial food-animal workers test positive for livestock-associated MRSA
In a recent study comparing workers at industrial livestock operations and those employed at antibiotic-free livestock operations, researchers found that industrial workers were much more likely to carry livestock-associated strains of drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, more commonly and scarily known as MRSA.
It’s Get Smart About Antibiotics Week, and new research finds that antibiotic prescription-filling rates vary substantially from state to state in the US.
Researchers have linked the increase in antibiotic-resistant urinary tract infections to the use of antibiotics in livestock. The counterargument that the resistance could have originated in humans in the first place misses the point.
Yesterday, the FDA announced a new program that has the potential to slash the routine use of antibiotics by livestock producers. The routine administration of antibiotics to livestock with no signs of sickness helps animals grow more quickly, but it’s also a significant contributor to the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. An estimated 70% of the […]