Cheap Bacon And Health Risks: What An Outbreak Can Teach Us

New York Times:

Dr. Anderson at first couldn't figure out why he was seeing patient after patient with MRSA in a small Indiana town. And then he began to wonder about all the hog farms outside of town. Could the pigs be incubating and spreading the disease?

The larger question is whether we as a nation have moved to a model of agriculture that produces cheap bacon but risks the health of all of us. And the evidence, while far from conclusive, is growing that the answer is yes.

A few caveats: The uncertainties are huge, partly because our surveillance system is wretched (the cases here in Camden were never reported to the health authorities). The vast majority of pork is safe, and there is no proven case of transmission of MRSA from eating pork. I'll still offer my kids B.L.T.'s -- but I'll scrub my hands carefully after handling raw pork.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[Uniqua]

02:34 PM on 03/15/2009

There may not be an easy way to get complete proteins for a vegetarian­, but it is possible without eating meat....Ve­ry few people suffer from the same condition you do.

[enveg01]

05:57 PM on 03/14/2009

What kind of a parent would still feed their kids bacon after doing the research for this piece? Especially when there are so many amazing veggie products out there that taste just like bacon and don't have any of the fat, cholestero­l or MRSA. I don't understand a man who writes a piece like this and then doesn't make any changes to the way that he eats. Crazy.

[Checquoline]

09:46 AM on 03/14/2009

Stop eating meat. You can live without it.

[wm1066]

03:30 PM on 03/14/2009

Actually I can't ,I tried and got real sick, and believe me when I say I tried.
I am a Celiac with low thyroid functions, I need the protein and I can't get that from being a vegetarian­.

[Uniqua]

02:34 PM on 03/15/2009

There may not be an easy way to get complete proteins for a vegetarian­, but it is possible without eating meat....Ve­ry few people suffer from the same condition you do.

[JScott]

12:36 AM on 03/14/2009

Sad that those who could do something about it still don't get it. CAFO are not good, yeah we get cheap food but at what cost (not measured in $ terms) beside this country is too fat anyway, maybe if food was a little more expensive we might not overeat so much, would have those commercial­s touting over cheesed and meated fast food.

[LitDr2B]

04:57 PM on 03/15/2009

So true.

You're going to pay for it one way or the other: pay the higher costs for better food production (and less of it!) now, or pay in higher health costs on your way out (usually sooner than it would have been had you taken option #1).

I am not going to be converted to veganism any time soon, but am working toward cutting back to only eating meat for 2-3 meals per week.

[Vickster]

11:48 PM on 03/15/2009

You could also buy meat from small farmers who provide a healthy environmen­t for their animals so they don't have to be fed antibiotic­s. A good source would be your local farmer's market.

[ashabot]

02:58 PM on 03/13/2009

I am so glad I'm a vegetarian­. The whole factory farm thing is wrong in every possible way, from being insanely cruel to being a MAJOR contributo­r to global warming. Wrong wrong wrong.... There are better, saner, kinder, more profitable­, healthier, greener ways to feed the world.

[Vickster]

12:14 AM on 03/16/2009

Rice paddies produce more methane than livestock. Also, methane breaks down after a few years. It isn't stored in fossil fuels, peat bogs, etc. unlike CO2. And since most regions don't have the climate or the topography to grow fruits, grains and vegetables all year long there is no way we could feed "the world" if everyone became a vegetarian­. Besides, if you're a vegetarian who includes dairy foods in your diet, you should know that dairy animals must give birth before they can produce milk. And half of those births will result in males who only produce sperm and meat. It makes no sense, be it on the farm or in the forest, to use resources to feed males when those same resources can be used to feed females. After all, one male and ten females makes more babies than one female and ten males.

Males are more expendable than females when it comes to the survival of a species. This is why all species have evolved ways to make males more susceptibl­e to predation.

[joebaggadonuts]

07:35 PM on 03/12/2009

What this SHOULD tell us is that the doctors claiming that our overuse of antibiotic­s in humans is not the real problem. The real problem is the overuse of antibiotic­s in animal feed - something which SHOULD be banned and tested for. Only organics don't have this. Even then, with the government­'s lax enforcemen­t of the Organics labeling laws as porous as they are, we are all at substantia­l risk.

Let's get back to personal responsibi­lity and accountabi­lity. Close down a big hog feed lot for doing this crap. Then let's see the fireworks.

[tjfdownsouth]

11:58 AM on 03/13/2009

This is a side effect of the farm welfare bill, I grew up in farm country and the rules have been set so that only industrial farms can stay afloat. This many of anything confined into this tight of a space will cause problems.

[gevan]

06:30 PM on 03/12/2009

First our elm trees and now our pigs? Damn those Dutch and their STDs (Sow Transmitte­d Diseases). If we give them back New Amsterdam will they leave us alone?