Factory Farms Linked to Antibiotic-Resistant Diseases in Humans

There’s been speculation about this for years — a link between factory farms and the spread of infectious diseases that no antibiotic will touch.  Sounds like a no-brainer to me.  Hundreds of millions of livestock animals being routinely injected with antibiotics…more and more people being infected with antibiotic-resistant MRSA and Staphylococcus aureus — Connect the God Damn Dots!!!

In any case, the results are conclusive now.  No more guessing.  The American Society of Microbiology’s newsletter mBio has an article confirming your worst fears.  A particularly deadly strain of Staphylococcus aureus — CC398 — started out as a relatively harmless human bacteria.  It evolved into its present deadly mutation after colonizing the systems of pigs and chickens.

When this bacteria — inside the animals’ systems — was being bombarded with antibiotics, it not only became resistant to all antibiotics.  It also became bi-directional — able to be transmitted between humans and livestock.

The fun is just beginning.