This post is on Healthwise
The problem starts with the fact that pork harbors antibiotic-resistant bacteria, an ever-spreading menace that represents a public health nightmare. In the near future, there’s a good chance you may develop an infection from these microbes that antibiotics won’t be able to treat.
There’s no one to blame for this problem but ourselves. Both our misuse and overuse of antibiotics have helped to create this looming epidemiological disaster.
But the way pigs are raised on industrial farms is accelerating the spread of these pathogens.
It’s long been well-known that pork and other meats for sale in supermarkets harbor antibiotic-resistant bacteria. That’s why they have to be handled so carefully in your kitchen. Cutting boards that are used with raw meat have to be cleaned thoroughly with soap and water before other food comes in contact with their surfaces and the meat has to be cooked completely to make sure infectious microbes have been killed.
Bacterial spread
Frighteningly, a study of the workers who care for pigs on industrial farms shows that at least half of these employees unknowingly are taking these bacteria home with them. Researchers have found that the workers harbor the microbes in their noses and that the bacteria persist for up to four days after workers have left the farm.
At the start of the study, scientists thought that the bacteria would clear out of workers’ noses rapidly, within a day or so. But the analysis, performed in North Carolina, shows that the bacteria is hardier than believed.
The microbes the scientists found, Staphylococcus aureus, were resistant to antibiotics. The resistance is thought to originate from all of the antibiotic drugs given to sick pigs and the medications used to make hogs grow faster.
The researchers warn that the longer the microbes live, the greater the risk of having them spread to the families of the workers, into the local community and eventually attack hospital patients who are more vulnerable to infection.
“Before this study, we didn’t know much about the persistence of livestock-associated strains among workers in the United States whose primary full-time jobs involve working inside large industrial hog-confinement facilities,” says researcher Christopher D. Heaney, an assistant professor in the departments of environmental health sciences and epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “Now we need to better understand not only how persistence of this drug-resistant bacteria may impact the health of the workers themselves, but whether there are broader public health implications.”
Meanwhile, European hog farms have managed to create new versions of resistant bacteria called MRSA methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. This bacteria was found in the children of people who worked on pig farms and other livestock operations.
These kinds of discoveries have led several countries in Europe to forbid the use of antibiotics for making animals grow more rapidly and add more body fat.
Experts worry that these types of problems are likely to grow worse in the years ahead. The researchers in the latest study report that almost 300,000 people work with livestock in the U.S. In North Carolina, about 6,400 workers are employed at 938 hog farms.
Bacterial presence
Most of the Staphylococcus (staph) bacteria we encounter every day are fairly benign. Right now you have some varieties living in and on your body without causing problems. If you develop a staph infection, in most cases it will be mild and won’t cause major illness.
However, occasionally, staph infections may infect surgical wounds, spread to your blood, infect your lungs or cause difficulties in the urinary tract. If one of these infections resist treatment by antibiotics, it can threaten your life.
“We’re trying to figure out if this (the hog-related staph infection) is mainly a workplace hazard associated with hog farming or is it a threat to public health at large,” says Heaney. “To do that we need to learn more not just about how long workers carry bacteria in their noses, but how it relates to the risk of infection and other health outcomes in workers, their families, and communities.”
A problem of size and profit
We should remember, that when it comes to health, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The use of antibiotics to make livestock larger and more profitable should be banned.
When you seek out meat and pork to eat, eat organic where possible. Avoid the meat from animals that have been treated with antibiotics. It should be a pretty easy concept to remember: Unhealthy animals lead to unhealthy meat.
And unhealthy meat won’t do your health much good.
