ST398 found again — in Italy

By Maryn / April 23, 2009

There’s a letter in the upcoming issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases (hat tip Pat Gardiner) alerting the medical community that “pig MRSA” ST398 has been found in Italy, adding t the steadily enlarging list of countries where this strain has been identified. (NB: Because most of these surveys are one-offs, we don’t yet know whether […]

Read More

Does ethanol production produce resistant bacteria too?

By Maryn / April 22, 2009

One of the challenges of disappearing down the rabbit hole of a gnarly chapter — gee, it’s dark down here — is that I get behind on my RSS feeds, and suddenly every entry in my Google Reader is at 1000+ and it’s all just too daunting. So, trying to catch up a bit, I […]

Read More

Reducing antibiotic use in ag — by legislation

By Maryn / April 21, 2009

A quick referral from the depths of the deadline murk: KCRA-3 TV in Sacramento covers legislation under consideration in California that would regulate antibiotic use on farms in the state. (Hat-tip to Ethicurean)

Read More

How sewage plants birth resistant bacteria

By Maryn / April 20, 2009

At the always-excellent public health blog Effect Measure, there’s a fascinating dissection of a new paper still in press at the journal Science of the Total Environment. The paper unpacks what happens to Acinetobacter in effluent as they move through sewage treatment. Answer: Many are eliminated, but the ones that survive become significantly more resistant. […]

Read More

More MRSA in pigs, in Portugal

By Maryn / April 14, 2009

A brand-new report, in a letter to the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, indicates that ST398 “pig MRSA” has been found in Portugal for the first time. Constanca Pomba and colleagues from the Technical University of Lisbon swabbed and cultured the noses of pigs and veterinarians on two pig farms in different regions of Portugal, […]

Read More

Appearing today on The Ethicurean

By Maryn / April 14, 2009

Constant readers, I want to let you know that the terrific food policy blog The Ethicurean (motto: “Chew the right thing“) very kindly had me over to do a Q&A on MRSA in meat. Please take a look and let them have some clicks: They are smart people thoughtfully elucidating a difficult subject, and worth […]

Read More

MRSA in a hospital nursery

By Maryn / April 13, 2009

Via the Boston Globe and the blog of the hospital’s CEO comes work of an ongoing outbreak of community-associated MRSA in the newborn nursery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston: …between last November and March, BIDMC experienced several occurrences or “clusters” of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, infections that have affected some of […]

Read More