A report being published in the new issue of the US-based “Emerging Infectious Diseases” has found that community-originated cases of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) (MER-suh, it is NOT M.R.S.A.) have grown by more than 90% in the past decade.

This alarming rise is being linked to medication-resistant infections in livestock animals that are fed huge amounts of antibiotics daily to artificially promote growth and counteract the disease that prevails in their filthy, overcrowded conditions. Contact with the animals is leading to a high number of livestock farmers, workers and veterinarians testing positive for MRSA strains.

MRSA, which can also be transmitted via infection-contaminated meat, causes deep painful abscesses that can penetrate bones and major organs, leading to fatal outcomes. Report co-author Dr. Eili Klein of Princeton University, USA, explained, “Every time somebody uses an antibiotic, that reduces the number of times the antibiotic can ever be used because it’s going to create resistance.”

Experts are thus extremely concerned about the abuse of antibiotics in the animal industry, which purchases up to 70% of all such products in the US. Livestock practices have spawned other harmful new diseases such as mad cow disease and the 2009 swine flu pandemic.

In a current update, the official global total of swine flu fatalities is 8,651, with tallies of all infections being far too many to even count. According to reported records, fatalities rose very recently to at least 21 in Egypt, 580 in India, 4 in Morocco, 9 in the West Bank of Palestine, and 13 in Iraq. South Korean authorities are investigating the death of a student who passed away four days after receiving the swine flu vaccine, and health officials there have also reported the first case of Tamiflu-resistant swine flu in a five-year-old boy.

We sorrow for all those afflicted by swine flu and MRSA. Our appreciation scientists for your research on this spreading disease. May an awareness of the link between livestock raising and such animal-borne illnesses become better known so that more people know the protection of the humane, hygienic plant-based diet.


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Chinareport