Katie Couric Investigates Feeding Healthy Farm Animals Antibiotics. Is it Creating New Drug-Resistant Bacteria?(CBS) "It's scary, I mean, you just can't describe it really," said Bill Reeves.
Two years ago, 46-year-old Bill Reeves, who worked at a poultry processing plant in Batesville, Arkansas, developed a lump under his right eye.
"It went from about the size of a mosquito bite to about the size of a grapefruit," he said.
CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric reports doctors tried several drugs that usually work on this potentially deadly infection: methicillin resistant staph or MRSA - before one saved his life.
"You go from a just regular day to knowing you may die in a couple of hours," Reeves said.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6191894n&tag=related;photovideoHe wasn't the only worker from this farming community to get sick. Joyce Long worked at the hatchery, handling eggs and chicks. She got MRSA at least a dozen times, and had to try several drugs as well.
"It was real painful. Shots don't help, because it's so infected, it don't help much," she said.
Within weeks, 37 people at the hatchery got sick. They've filed personal injury claims against the company, Pilgrims Pride, which has no comment.
This is not an isolated incident and chickens aren't the only concern. A University of Iowa study last year, found a new strain of MRSA -- in nearly three-quarters of hogs (70%), and nearly two-thirds of the workers (64%) -- on several farms in Iowa and Western Illinois. All of them use antibiotics, routinely. On antibiotic-free farms no MRSA was found.
Health officials are concerned if workers who handle animals are getting sick - what about the rest of us? Drug resistant infections have sky-rocketed over the past two decades, killing an estimated 70,000 Americans last year alone. It's an emerging health crisis that scientists say is caused not only by the overuse of antibiotics in humans, but in livestock as well. Antibiotics fed to healthy animals to promote growth and prevent disease.
"My fear is that one of these days we are going to have an organism that's resistant to everything that we know, and we'll be left powerless," said Thomas Cummins, Batesville's chief medical officer.
"There are a lot of concerns about antibiotics being added to animal feeds that may be contributing to MRSA as well as other antibiotic resistance," Cummins said. "Certainly the more bacteria are exposed to antibiotics in any shape or form, the more tendency there is for resistance."
There are different types of drug-resistant bacteria. Some, like e coli and salmonella, can be passed on to people by consuming undercooked meat and poultry. Now, scientists are worried that Americans may be acquiring drug-resistant MRSA - not from eating, but from handling tainted meat from animals that were given antibiotics.
Evidence of MRSA has been found in the nation's meat supply. But it's unclear how widespread it may be, because only a small fraction is tested for MRSA.
Shelley Hearne has studied the health effects of factory farming for 25 years.
Pew Campaign On Human Health and Industrial Farming:
http://www.saveantibiotics.org/"How does this go from the farm to the meat counter, to having an adverse effect on humans," Couric asked.
"If the bacteria becomes resistant to antibiotics, it can actually spread in many ways," Hearne said. "It could be in the food supply, but it also can be in waters that runoff in a farm. It could be in the air. It can happen very quickly in many different ways. It's why it's a practice that has to stop on the farms."
That practice occurs inside factory farms, where antibiotics help animals absorb and process food so they grow bigger, faster - a selling point pushed by the pharmaceutical industry. Because animals are packed into confinement pens, antibiotics are also used to keep disease from spreading like wildfire.
Liz Wagstrom is a veterinarian with the National Pork Board.
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