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The 'Piggy' MRSA: It's Here...

By mikethemadbiologist on June 6, 2008.

inurnoze

So while I was at the American Society for Microbiology meeting this week (and my talk went fine, thanks for asking), I saw a poster by one of ScienceBlogling Tara's students, Abby Harper, about MRSA (methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) in pigs.

In the past, I've talked about how, in Europe, there is a strain of MRSA that is sweeping through pigs in Europe, ST398. Essentially, this is a silent epidemic sweeping through pigs (it doesn't seem to cause that much disease is pigs; it's primarily a commensal). In agricultural communities, it seems to be spreading from pigs to people.

So now Tara and Anne come along and tell us that, in seven farms, none were MRSA-free and some were...chock full of MRSA. And the strain was always ST398.

Oh my.

Seriously, ST398 could very well be the next MRSA epidemic strain in the U.S.

I blame Tara.

Tags
agriculture
antibiotics
MRSA
We're Really Fucked

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