Of Pigs, Chickens, People, and Superbugs

I was curious to read Miguel’s comment (on my Feb. 4 "From Nuts to Subversives" posting) that pigs are a major source of drug-resistant bacteria known as MRSA.

I had just read an article in the Financial Times last week about MRSA, but that publication focused on MRSA in hospitals, and didn’t make mention of the pig source. It seems that significant numbers of people are contracting this superbug when they are admitted to hospitals, ostensibly to get better.

Not surprisingly, the article’s main concern is whether and how pharmaceutical companies might be able to come up with new antibiotics to fight the so-called “superbug” that MRSA represents.

The financial interests tend not to care much about the source of the problem or its natural interrelationships, but mainly whether there is money to be made in a solution to the problem. Hence, the Financial Times’ emphasis.

But the Financial Times is not optimistic about whether Big Pharma can easily solve this problem. “The challenge in fighting bacteria with new drugs is that all the most promising avenues of development have been pursued, leaving today’s researchers with a much harder task.” And “much harder” tends to translate into “less profitable.”

MRSA illustrates the pickle we’ve gotten ourselves into via over-use of antibiotics, both among humans and animals. I learned of a vivid illustration recently in a discussion with a chicken farmer He recalled how he had, a few years back, obtained his first chickens, and realized he didn’t have feed for them.

He wanted to raise them naturally, but could only find at the local feed stores feed that contained antibiotics mixed in. Since he had to feed the chickens, he figured he’d give them the medicated stuff until he could find a med-free source. When he finally obtained his med-free feed, he gradually transitioned the chickens to the new feed, not knowing how they’d react to suddenly going off antibiotics. The results were breathtaking: he lost 25% of his chickens to disease from their compromised immune systems.

So as Miguel notes, people are now contracting MRSA from pigs, and spreading it around. I have a feeling that all doctors will be able to do is hold their patients’ hands for this unfolding episode.