Hog manure spreads antibiotic resistance

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have found that 11 per cent of people who are resistant to methicillin antibiotics picked up that resistance from hog manure spread on nearby fields.

It’s the first time that type of link has been identified, although previous research has found that people who work in hog barns are more likely to acquire methicillin resistance, commonly called MRSA.

The risks go beyond reducing the effectiveness of methicillin antibiotics to treat infections; MRSA resistance can easily become resistance to several different antibiotics.

In the study, which was published online by JAMA Internal Medicine, the researchers from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore analyzed electronic health records from Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania from 2005 to 2010.

The researchers identified 1,539 cases of community-associated MRSA and 1,335 health care-associated MRSA from a total population of 446,480 patients.

They concluded that about 11 percent of community-acquired MRSA and soft tissue infections could be attributed to crop fields fertilized with swine manure. The researchers found similar but weaker associations of swine operations with community-associated MRSA and skin and soft-tissue infection.

                        

The finding is bound to increase pressure to ban the sub-therapeutic use of antibiotics in livestock and poultry. 

At the very least, farmers ought to run frequent trials to determine whether the antibiotics are, in fact, still providing the growth-promoting results they desire. If there is widespread antibiotic resistance in their livestock and poultry, it's likely they are not only increasing health risks for people, but also wasting their money.

Raw milk cheese kills one, sickens 10 more

Gouda cheese made on farm from unpasteurized milk has been blamed for the death of one person and 10 others are sick, including one who has been in hospital for a long time in British Columbia.

Gort’s Gouda Cheese Farm of Salmon Arm, B.C., is working with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to recall all of the cheese it has made since May 27, most of it with unpasteurized milk.

While the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control says one person died in August and another is in hospital, that four others in B.C. and seven in Alberta are sick, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency says on its website today that there have been “no reported illnesses” related to the E. coli 0157:H7  found in the cheese.

The company owner, Kathy Wikkerink, has apologized to customers and asked for forgiveness.

The cheese was sold at the farm, via the internet and from stores in B.C. and Alberta.

Frankly, I'm disgusted by the sanctimonius people who promote unpasteurized milk and dairy products as better for your health.

Soy diesel increases pollution

Europeans have found that biodiesel made from soybean oil is twice as polluting as fossil-fuel diesel.

That has prompted the European Commission to cut its mandate for crop-based biofuel from 10 to five per cent by 2020.

The change requires approvals from member states before it can take effect.

The investigators found that biofuels made from cereals and sugar have much lower carbon emissions than those made from vegetable oils.

The European Commission is promoting biodiesel by setting minimum volumes that must be blended into automotive diesel fuels.

Canada has also set minimums for biodiesel and ethanol.

E. coli vaccine could cut food poisonings by 85 per cent

A new British study says vaccinating cattle against E. coli 0157:H7 could cut food poisonings from the poison-producing bacteria by up to 85 per cent.

The report, published this week in the National Academy of Sciences journal in the United Kingdom, comes just as Bioniche Inc. of Brockville, Ont., has decided to sell its animal-products division, including the E.coli vaccine for cattle that was the basis for the study.

The research team says few farmers are using the vaccine, which costs about $6 per animal, because it does nothing to improve the health of their cattle.

Cattle vaccines effectively halve the frequency of shedding of the bacteria, the authors say.

But because of the role played by supershedders, the human benefit of vaccine use in cows should be “substantially greater than anticipated from the observed efficacy,'' and could be underestimated by those who don't take the supershedder effect into consideration, they write.

“Specifically, we show that vaccines producing a 50 per cent reduction in shedding frequency in cattle (consistent with reported efficacies) could reduce human cases by nearly 85 per cent. We conclude that vaccination of cattle, the major reservoir for E. coli O157, could be an especially effective public health control against a serious disease.''

McGivern defies chicken board

Sean McGivern, founder of Practical Farmers of Ontario, is openly challenging the authority of the Chicken Farmers of Ontario marketing board.

On Aug. 14, he wrote the board, with a copy to the legal advisors to the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission, that he intends to start growing 2,000 chickens per year on Dec. 1., and without quota.

He says “I do not accept your dominion” over all producers of chicken.

In a letter dated Sept. 14, Sandy Roulston, manager of regulations and standards for the chicken board, answered in detail why McGivern will be risking legal action if he goes ahead with his plans.

Roulston cites authority the chicken board has been granted by the Ontario government to regulate the production of chicken and its authority to inspect premises and issue injunctions to prevent people who do not own quota from growing and marketing chicken.

Roulston also dismissed McGivern’s claim that the chicken board is operating as a private business.

McGivern wrote back in a letter dated Sept. 10 that if the chicken board is a public institution, then its annual meeting ought to be open to the public and that anybody who grows any chickens in Ontario ought to be able to present motions and vote.

McGivern and his Practical Farmers of Ontario organization have joined with the Small Flock Poultry Farmers of Canada to lobby for a change in chicken board regulations to allow people who grow up to 2,000 chickens per year without owning quota.

Mystery surrounds CNE cronut burger crisis

There’s a mystery involved in the food poisoning of at least 90 people who bought cronut burgers during the Canadian National Exhibition and added a maple syrup, bacon and jam topping.

Toronto public health fingered the jam for causing the food poisonings.

And it said both the brown sugar and the maple syrup “tested negative” for staphylococcus aureus, the bacteria that caused the food poisoning.

Staphylococcus aureus bacteria did show up in the bacon, but the mystery is that it was a different strain from the one found in the victims of food poisoning.

                                

Feds blow $3.1 million

Congratulations to the Manitoba Co-operator for digging into the failure of a proposal to start a health foods business in a tiny Manitoba community of Waskada.

It reports that the federal government gave the venture $3.1 million, but that the government won't let the public know what happened to that money.

“There are confidentiality stipulations around the agreements we have in place with third parties,” said Gabriela Klimes, spokesperson for Western Economic Diversification which gave the money to the failed hemp-processing venture, told a reporter for Manitoba Co-operator.

The government has stone-walled on a request filed under the Access to Information system.

“When we settled with the government, we were told that we weren’t to say anything about it, and that was the agreement,” said Farm Genesis president Keith Hannah.

In fact, says the newspaper, the government won't reveal much about any of the many projects it has backed to the tune of $289 million.

But the government sought all the news media coverage it could garner when it was handing out the money, starting in 2009  under its Community Adjustment Fund.

I'm not surprised. It's part of a long-standing government policy, which is to treat the public like mushrooms - keep them in the dark and feed them horse manure.