MRSA and Flesh Foods

[Key Guy]

(nearly 2 years ago, I got a MRSA infection on my finger which nearly became a major medical event. I just want to pass along more info on this killer bug)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31766160/ns/health-food_safety/

Quote:

About two years ago, dozens of workers at a large chicken hatchery in Arkansas began experiencing mysterious skin rashes, with painful lumps scattered over their hands, arms, and legs. "They hurt real bad," says Joyce Long, 48, a 32-year veteran of the hatchery, where until recently, workers handled eggs and chicks with bare hands. "When we went and got cultured, doctors told us we had a superbug." Its name, she learned, was MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. This form of staph bacteria developed a mutation that resists antibiotics (including methicillin), making it hard to treat, even lethal. According to the CDC, certain types of MRSA infections kill 18,000 Americans a year — more than die from AIDS.

Soon co-workers at the nearby processing plant, where hundreds of thousands of chicken carcasses are prepped daily for sale, began finding the lumps. Dean Reeves, 50, an 11-year employee, went to the hospital with an excruciating bump on her thigh she thought was a spider bite. It wasn't: She, too, had contracted MRSA, as had her husband, Bill, 46, who also works at the facility. Since late 2007, Dean has had monthly relapses. Even the safety glasses, gloves, and smocks workers wear (along with upgraded regular cleaning of equipment) aren't enough to protect them, says Bill. "We work so fast, we often stick ourselves with knives or scissors and get blood on us from head to foot." When a swelling rose over one of his eyes, he was told he might go blind; if the infection progressed to his brain, he'd die.

Did any food safety agency test for MRSA in this plant's chickens, which were then sold to the public and served on American dinner tables? Did any government organization determine the source of the outbreak? Calls to the USDA, CDC, and Arkansas Department of Health yielded a no to both questions; the poultry company that owns the operation did not respond to multiple requests for a comment from Prevention. Yet in recent years, studies have found MRSA in retail cuts of pork, chicken, beef, and other meats in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

(much more online)

[Dr. Rich]

Great post on this information. My mother was picking grapes and thought she was bitten by a spider, but it turned out to be MRSA. Being close to Loma Linda helped--they caught it in time--but the danger is real.

Not yet sure on the importance of the meat problem tho. I still eat meat but am careful where it comes from. Living close to LL makes it easy to less and I like the taste of most veggie meats.

[nuff sed]

Now if they just made a good Veggie Pastrami..................

And a Veggie-dog that actually tasted like a real hot dog

[phkrause]

Yeah Gladussee that sounds good to me too.

pk