MRSA - honey bees - and a new riddle

"Our Decrepit Food Factories" is the title of the New York Times article by Michael Pollan published Dec. 16/2007 which highlights how dangerously far we have wandered from the sustainability path.

He compares two important news stories that have cropped up this past decade which may have profoundly serious impact on our future. He begins with the first, discussing an urgent subject that really hasn't received the attention it deserves -- namely community-acquired MRSA:

...the very scary antibiotic-resistant strain of Staphylococcus bacteria that is now killing more Americans each year than AIDS — 100,000 infections leading to 19,000 deaths in 2005, according to estimates in The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Back in June of this year I wrote a draft copy of a very detailed article on the subject of MRSA, complete with links, but never had time to complete it. I'll bring it to you early in the new year.

What does MRSA have to do with food factories (aka CAFOs)?

According to the article:

No one is yet sure how or where this strain evolved, but it is sufficiently different from the hospital-bred strains to have some researchers looking elsewhere for its origin, to another environment where the heavy use of antibiotics is selecting for the evolution of a lethal new microbe: the concentrated animal feeding operation, or CAFO.

More specifically, pig operations are receiving the closest scrutinity after a recent "European study found that 60 percent of pig farms that routinely used antibiotics had MRSA-positive pigs (compared with 5 percent of farms that did not feed pigs antibiotics)."

On December 13/2007, the CDC also published a study showing that a strain of “MRSA from an animal reservoir has recently entered the human population and is now responsible for [more than] 20 percent of all MRSA in the Netherlands.” The study stated:

The density of NT-MRSA isolates corresponds to the density of pig farming, whereas the density of typable strains corresponds to the density of the human population. The density of cattle farms is more or less identical to the density of pig farms.

Further study is underway.

For the record, Michael Pollan admits:

Scientists have not established that any of the strains of MRSA presently killing Americans originated on factory farms. But given the rising public alarm about MRSA and the widespread use on these farms of precisely the class of antibiotics to which these microbes have acquired resistance, you would think our public-health authorities would be all over it. Apparently not.

Meanwhile, what about the honey bees?

I had another post about the colony collapse disorder affecting honey bee populations around the world but never had a chance to publish it. However, I did mention the subject here.

Michael's article focusses more on how we're treating bee populations rather than the full background story on CCD.

It is the second news item that Michael Pollan draws our attention to with respect to the unsustainable methods growing within Big AG practices today.

We're asking a lot of our bees. We're asking a lot of our pigs too. That seems to be a hallmark of industrial agriculture: to maximize production and keep food as cheap as possible, it pushes natural systems and organisms to their limit, asking them to function as efficiently as machines. When the inevitable problems crop up — when bees or pigs remind us they are not machines — the system can be ingenious in finding "solutions," whether in the form of antibiotics to keep pigs healthy or foreign bees to help pollinate the almonds. But this year's solutions have a way of becoming next year's problems. That is to say, they aren't "sustainable."

I'm just the messenger, bringing attention to the story. How you choose to take the message is entirely up to you.

And now... the new riddle.

QUESTION: What are scientists watching closely as we near January 30/2008 that is: big (about 50 meters in diameter), flies at a speed of 1.2 km per second (8 miles/second) and carries the potential to unleash energy equivalent to a 15-megaton nuclear bomb?

ANSWER: coming tomorrow.

Until then, stay safe and be healthy!

In The News Last Week

If you haven't heard about it yet, there is a problem with bee populations in certain areas of the world, including the USA. This story in The New York Times wrestles with the subject:

"Bees Vanish, and Scientists Race for Reasons" - BELTSVILLE, Md., April 23

More than a quarter of the country’s 2.4 million bee colonies have been lost — tens of billions of bees, according to an estimate from the Apiary Inspectors of America, a national group that tracks beekeeping. So far, no one can say what is causing the bees to become disoriented and fail to return to their hives.

In other news, the Washington Post has a story out that has commenters posting furiously -- if one were to test the temperatures of the voting public using this public forum, one could only conclude that there is an extremely angry voting population eager for November 2008 to get here. The article is titled:

"FDA Was Aware of Dangers To Food" - By Elizabeth Williamson, Monday, April 23, 2007

Buried in the 12 pages of comments posted to the above article, one post drew my attention even closer:

"When pet food with Melamine is tested it shows a higher protein percentage and that is put on the label to boost sales. However, there is no more protein in the food. Melamine fools the test. I believe a criminal probe is about to be launched in the pet food case. In short, it is a man-made form of plastic whose toxic effects on pets and animals humans eat is not well studied."

It got me to thinking if, when ingested by pigs, does it raise the protein content in pork? Probably not... but I thought it might explain another little mystery that has popped up in South Carolina. Check out this headline through Associated Press in the news last week:

"Tainted Hogs Enter Human Food Supply" - By ANDREW BRIDGES, AP 2007-04-27

It was the above article which led me on a quick search where I discovered this article:

"Melamine in urine of S.C. hogs" - South Carolina "The State" Thu, Apr. 26, 2007

The reason I bring this article up is because, according to the article...

"Traces of melamine were found in hog urine at the farm, but the feed has tested negative for contamination."

So how did the melamine get into the hogs' urine? Apparently, that's still under investigation.

What are State officials doing about it? Let's roll over to CLEMSONews, since "Livestock and Poultry Health is a unit of Clemson University Public Service and Agriculture" and see what they have to say on the issue:

State officials are waiting for guidance from the FDA, FSIS and EPA as to the significance of these tests and other pending tests.

Not very comforting for people already upset with the FDA and FSIS ...and, sadly, even the EPA is a questionable source for protecting us, since the Federal Government seems to have gutted them, too.

For one example, after a decade of study and public review of scientific evidence, the EPA proposed a stricter standard, reducing the safe limit for arsenic in our drinking water from 50 ppb down to 10 ppb while Bill Clinton was president. Mr. Bush reversed EPA's decision shortly after taking office. The Administration tossed out these recommendations, with no solid science to back up their actions. You can read about the whole sordid mess over here.

I'm hoping not all is lost... in fact, I'm hoping this Administration, and future governing powers, will stop playing chess with important agencies that were originally meant to protect us -- and stop using us as pawns in their game with Big Ag lobby groups.

The Farm Bill is up for renewal this year. Let's all watch closely to see who is really looking out for who.

Oh, and before I forget, one more article that slipped under the radar of mainstream media:

"Dairy linked to Parkinson's disease, study" - By Chris Mercer 4/24/2007

Hey -- don't shoot the messenger. It's just one more study (among many) that have been completed in recent years saying dairy is doing some pretty bad things to us... do a quick search on google and see for yourself.

Meanwhile, I leave you with this quote by Albert Einstein:

"If the bee disappears off the surface of the globe, then man would have four years left to live," said Albert Einstein. "No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."

Have a super week ahead!