Dr. Richard Raymond
Not to go into too much detail about research by a group of Ohio State University (OSU) investigators that was published Dec 5 in Antimicrobial Agents & Chemotherapy, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology, a peer reviewed journal, but I do need to at least describe the rather scary finding.
In this research, OSU found the carbapenem resistant gene that is carried on a plasmid on a pig farm. Plasmids are scary because they can be transferred from germ to germ, even crossing species lines.
Carbapenem resistant enterobacteriaceae (CRE), which is what they found, are even scarier, so scary some call them "killer germs" because the chance of living if you contract one of these infections is 50-50.
To date, CRE infections in this country have been pretty much limited to health care settings, although some companion animals have been noted to be carriers. Carbapenem can be used by small animal veterinarians to treat Fluffy's runny nose, but they are banned in animal agriculture.
So how did this bug show up in farrowing barns and a nursery on a large hog confinement facility? Read more
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