Rare Superbug Gene Discovered on U.S. Pig Farm

Another rare and terrifying superbug gene has been found. This time, on a U.S. pig farm. This discovery suggests it’s possible that raw meat could carry the germs into the human population. If you’ve ever thought about giving up meat, or even just pork, I’d think about it even more now.

The researchers stressed (no doubt the meat industry was happy) that no pigs scheduled for slaughter carried the mutant gene and therefore no threat (yet) existed to people. Also, none of the pigs were sick, BUT, the mutant gene should not have been on the farm at all and NO ONE knows how it got there.

Is meat still sounding safe and tasty?

From the article:

“The gene is called bla IMP-27 and it gives bacteria the ability to resist the effects of a class of antibiotics called carbapenems.
Carbapenems are considered an antibiotic of last resort, so germs that resist their effects are very difficult to kill.
Worse, this superbug gene is carried on an easily swapped bit of genetic material called a plasmid, and the researchers found it in several different species of bacteria on the farm.
That suggests the bacteria have been passing the gene around.”

The obvious fear is that the gene could get into bacteria that infect people and if the gene were to combine with a type of antibiotic-resistant germ, carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (which are especially dangerous), it could be deadly. CRE germs kill half their victims.

The gene was found as researchers were checking random samples submitted to testing labs from pigs suspected of carrying bad infections. The bla IMP-27 gene turned up in a single farm sample. Teams responded quickly by descending on the farm, swabs and swiffers (similar to the household cleaning tool, theses are electrostatic and are therefore good for taking samples) in hand. They swabbed pigs, took fecal samples, tested pens, fences, and equipment. They found samples of bla IMP-27 in several different samples and in several different species of bacteria, including E. coli and Enterobacteriaceae. (One scary note, several of the bacteria found resisted more than one type of antibiotic.)

Thomas Wittum, chair of the veterinary medicine team at The Ohio State University, who led the study team remarked that finding this rare superbug gene in bacteria infecting food animals is bad news, “The implication of our finding is that there is a real risk that CRE may disseminate in food animal populations and eventually contaminate fresh retail meat products.”

But even if it didn’t make people sick, right away, it could still colonize people who handle raw meat. If that were to happen and someone became ill with something else, the bacteria could multiply and colonized people can infect sick or immunocompromised people.