KAW press release regarding evidence showing that the use of drugs in livestock is contributing to the current methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) epidemic in Europe and suggests it could play a similar role here.

The research includes a recent study published in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s journal Emerging Infectious Diseases that links a new MRSA strain initially found only in pigs to more than 20 percent of all human MRSA infections in the Netherlands. Research published this fall in Veterinary Microbiology found MRSA was also prevalent in Canadian pigs and pig farmers, pointing again to animal agriculture as a source of the deadly bacteria.