If It's Tuesday, It Must BeYou Are What You Blog Day

• This is rich: Michelle Obama plants an organic garden at the White House. What wingnut could possibly be so crazy as to object to that? You'd never guess! And no, it's not Michelle Bachmann.

Yep, it's a lobbying group for Big Ag with a little too much time on its hands:

Did you hear the news? The White House is planning to have an "organic" garden on the grounds to provide fresh fruits and vegetables for the Obama's and their guests. While a garden is a great idea, the thought of it being organic made Janet Braun, CropLife Ambassador Coordinator and I shudder. As a result, we sent a letter encouraging them to consider using crop protection products and to recognize the importance of agriculture to the entire U.S. economy.

Jesus. Imagine, a garden without fertilizers or pesticides? What will we tell the mutants children?

• Looks like the Baron's pistachio-crusted sea bass recipe goes on the back burner for awhile. Let's at least give credit where due to the Giant Food Conglomerate™ for actually doing things that the FDA isn't so adept at anymore.

The FDA learned about the problem last Tuesday, when Kraft Foods Inc. notified the agency that it had detected salmonella in roasted pistachios through routine product testing. Kraft and the Georgia Nut Co. recalled their Back to Nature Nantucket Blend trail mix the next day.

Now that's quality control we can believe in.

• On the subject, there appear to be some serious health concerns about The Other White Meat. And no, not the usual fat or triglycerides, either:

An effective way to say there isn't a problem is never to look. That seems to be precisely what most U.S. government food-safety agencies are doing when it comes to determining whether the livestock in our food supply is contaminated with MRSA and if so, whether the often-fatal bacterium is being passed on to consumers who buy and consume that meat.

We know that some strains of MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) are extremely dangerous. Dr. Monina Klevens, of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, examined the cases of the disease reported in hospitals, schools and prisons in one year and extrapolated that "94,360 invasive MRSA infections occurred in the United States in 2005; these infections were associated with death in 18,650 cases."

Earlier this year, Dr. Scott Weese, from the Department of Pathobiology at the Ontario Veterinary College told those attending the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases at the CDC that there was a problem. He and his colleagues had found MRSA in 10 percent of 212 samples of pork chops and ground pork bought in four Canadian provinces.

So? Canada, schmanada, who cares? We only eat USDA Choice American meat in the Baron's household. Unless, of course, we don't . . .

Tara Smith, an assistant professor for the University of Iowa department of epidemiology, and her graduate researchers have done what is apparently is the first testing of swine for MRSA in the U.S.

They swabbed the noses of 209 pigs from 10 farms in Iowa and Illinois and found MRSA in 70 percent of the porkers.

Today, in Boston, at the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, Abby Harper, one of Smith's graduate assistants, presented the results of a study that she and Michael Male did on 20 workers at the Iowa swine farms. Harper reported that 45 percent of the workers carried the same MRSA bacterium as the pigs.

Okay, fine. The USDA's on the case, no?

The FDA is aware of Weese's study, but "we do not yet have similar data with regards to the MRSA situation among food animals and retail meats," [FDA spokesman Mike] Herndon said.

There is no indication that FDA has tested meat for MRSA.

But the FDA and USDA eagerly pointed to a group called the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System as the protector of food and humans from foodborne bacteria. The coalition of scientists from several federal agencies primarily target salmonella, campylobacter and E. coli.

But the group does not currently screen for MRSA.

Sounds like another invitation to more meddlesome government intervention, if you ask me. Who needs more socialism when you have assurances from the experts?

The National Pork Producers Council in Washington is sure there's no problem. They told me "there is nothing to worry about; MRSA (in pigs) has not been found this side of the border" and "USDA and CDC has given our pigs a clean bill of health."

Good to hear! And the CDC confirms:

A CDC spokeswoman told me that she could find "no indication we made that statement."

As it turns out, It's still pretty difficult to catch MSRA from eating pork, so long as it's thoroughly cooked. But it looks like we'll need to handle pork products like chicken these days, cleaning it thoroughly and washing our hands and cutting boards after contacting it. And for a minute there, I thought would have to give up prosciutto!

Thankfully, at least there's someone in Washington who cares about this. Drop her a line to express your gratitude (and try not to chuckle over her name, please), then contact your local Congresscritters and tell them to get behind the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical treatment Act. It may not have a dramatic title, but if passed it could revolutionize industrial farming practices across America. And not a minute too soon.

---Vitelius

Comments

[Pat Gardiner]

Good Article. I hope all the readers get the irony.

I have spent almost decade on this disaster, day after day: there at the beginning, with pigs and in pig country when the horror story started.
We decided on a self-sufficient lifestyle and walked into a nightmare.
There is little doubt that MRSA in pigs has been leaking into the hospitals for some years.
There was a nasty mutation to a porcine circovirus in Britain in 1999 which caused an epidemic that required huge quantities of antibiotics to handle the consequences.
MRSA in pigs was the result, usually the ST398 strain.
The Dutch picked up the problem about four years ago and commendably make everything they knew public.
Both circovirus and MRSA epidemics have now travelled the world along with accompanying cover-ups. It is quite a nasty situation - now coming to light in the USA.
MRSA st398, mutated circovirus and various other unpleasant zoonotic diseases have now reached American pig farms.
The people exposing the scandal in the US are to be commended.
I have extensive records available to anyone researching the link and can often answer general questions quickly and accurately.
–
Regards
Pat Gardiner
Release the results of testing British pigs for MRSA and C.Diff now!
http://www.go-self-sufficient.com and http://animal-epidemics.blogspot.com