Don’t fall in the Swine Flu manure lagoon while forgetting all about Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)

As the swine flu outbreak dominates the news, albeit irresponsibly reported by the mainstream media, let us not forget about Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), that virulent superbug spawned in pig factory farms that kills more people in the USA every year than does AIDS.
You won’t read this about antibiotic resistance in your Saturday paper:
“An [...]

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Report on Industrial Farm Animal Production in America: Industry has to Change

In light of the (unaddressed by mainstream media and government) connections between factory farming and swine flu and other related issues, I am going to repeat a post from my old blog at ethicsandanimals.com.
New Report on Industrial Farm Animal Production in America: Industry has to Change (from May 2008)

The Pew Charitable Trusts and Johns [...]

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A pinch of plastic, a dash of disease, a marinade of waste runoff

My last post was about the evolution of antibiotic resistant superbugs through feeding drugs to farm animals.  I’d like to stay on the topic of health related issues around factory farming for a bit more so first check out the link below from the Union of Concerned Scientists about what farm animals are fed.
“They [...]

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Serving up disaster: Antibiotic use on farm animals

I’ve been following the factory farm superbug story mostly in relation to MRSA and pig confinement operations but did you know that according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, roughly 70 percent of the antibiotics used in the U.S. are fed to farm animals. That is estimated to be more than four times the amount [...]

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