Pat's Note: As you can see Defra are driving themselves into a
cul-de-sac.

They will soon be all on their own with no sympathisers anywhere.

The refusal to release the results of testing Britain's pigs for MRSA
will see to that. It is obvious they have something pretty bad to
hide.

It will be that Britain is one of the sources, and that they have
ignored the risks for at least four years.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080724/OPINION04/807240342/1038/OPINION

July 24, 2008

As a health-care professional, I am deeply troubled about recently
disclosed information on MRSA (methicillen-resistant staphylococcus
aureus) a potentially dangerous bacteria traced to overuse of
antibiotics. This past March, at the International Conference on
Emerging Infectious Diseases in Atlanta, Tara Smith, an assistant
professor at the University of Iowa Department of Epidemiology
reported her findings on MRSA on swine farms, which confirmed the
presence of MRSA in both swine and swine-farm workers.

Smith found MRSA in more than 70 percent of the 209 pigs they tested
on 10 farms in Iowa and Illinois. Of the 20 workers tested on swine
farms, 45 percent carried the same MRSA bacteria found in pigs.

MRSA was identified as a potential killer in the early 1960s. In the
mid 1990s, the CDC reported that MRSA had broken out of its usual
medical institutional setting and was occurring in the young and
healthy population.

It was during this time the prophylactic use of antibiotics in
livestock went from rare to commonplace. The similarity between the
time line for increased use of antibiotics in livestock and the
soaring rate of MRSA in the general population should spark Iowans to
demand additional research.

This increase in antibiotic-resistant bacteria is raising concern that
we may be entering the post-antibiotic era, meaning a period where
there would be no effective antibiotics available for treating many
life-threatening infections. Death due to infection will once again
become a very real threat.

- Patricia Fuller, Council Bluffs

-- 
Regards
Pat Gardiner
Release the results of testing British pigs for MRSA and C.Diff now!
www.go-self-sufficient.com