Each member of the European Parliament gets 4 342 euros every month, mainly to fund an office in their own country. But offices for 249 MEPs do not exist or seem nowhere to be found. So far 133 out of the 748 current parliamentarians told what they pay in office rent, an investigation shows. Each MEP receives a so-called General Expenditure Allowance (GEA), costing the EU around €40 million annually. It is intended to provide for national offices, but following research by journalists at ‘The MEPs Project,’ it seems the funds are potentially being misused.
Pigs infected with the superbug MRSA can be freely imported into the UK due to regulatory loopholes, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reveal. An investigation has established that there is no mandatory screening for live breeding pigs leaving Denmark – where MRSA is rife throughout the country’s herd – and entering the UK. Experts are warning that if no action is taken, the UK’s pig herd could rapidly become infected. Such an epidemic could have a serious impact on human health, according to leading Danish microbiologist and MRSA expert, Professor Hans Jørn Kolmos. Thousands of people have contracted the livestock-associated strain of MRSA in Denmark and six have died from it in the last five years.
In Denmark, there are more than twice as many pigs as humans, and twice as many antibiotics given to the animals as well. A perfect breeding ground for resistant bacteria – to which politics have failed to respond.
In November 2013, a 63-year-old man with diabetes and end-stage kidney got fever because of inflammation. Samples of blood grew the resistant pig-bacteria, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, MRSA, CC398. Three weeks later the man died.
If you are a pig farmer and are looking for breeding animals that are free from MRSA, you will find here the first list ever showing farms whose pigs have officially been tested by the authorities and found to be infected. You will have to take extra precautions if you want to deal with these farms. You can demand that they produce a recent MRSA attest so you can know if their pigs are still infected. If you are looking for a job in the farm sector, the list can be used to find establishments which have or have had problems with bacteria in the workplace. For producers, neighbors and the local population in the vicinity of pig farmers, the list also provides clear and honest information about the presence of infection, as the Veterinary and Food Administration (Fødevarestyrelsen) investigated it in 2011 and 2014. See the list over 205 pig farms where there was found MRSACC398-bacteria in the period 2011-2014
In the latest investigation from 2014 there are 181 larger pig production units, which either produce piglets for sale or pigs to be slaughtered.
Er du svineproducent og søger MRSA-frie avlsdyr, så kommer her den første liste nogensinde over virksomheder, hvis svin officielt har været testet af myndighederne og fundet smittebærende. Du skal derfor udvise ekstra omhu, hvis du vil handle med disse virksomheder. Du kan forlange, at de fremlægger en aktuel MRSA-attest, så du kan vide, om deres svin stadig er smittebærere.
Søger du arbejde i landbruget, kan listen bruges til at finde virksomheder, der har eller har haft problemer med det bakterielle arbejdsmiljø. For leverandører, naboer og lokalbefolkningen omkring svinevirksomhederne på listen rummer den også åben og ærlig besked om smitteforholdene, sådan som Fødestyrelsen undersøgte dem i 2011 og 2014.
Er du svineproducent og søger MRSA-frie avlsdyr, så kommer her den første liste nogensinde over virksomheder, hvis svin officielt er testet af myndighederne og fundet rene. Søger man arbejde i landbruget, kan listen bruges til at finde virksomheder med styr på det bakterielle arbejdsmiljø. For leverandører, naboer og lokalbefolkningen omkring svinevirksomhederne på listen rummer den også åben og ærlig besked om smitteforholdene, sådan som Fødestyrelsen undersøgte dem i 2014. Se listen over de 82 svinefarme
Der er tale om 82 større svinefabrikker, der enten producerer smågrise til videresalg eller slagtesvin. Sammen med 196 andre blev deres dyr grundigt testet i 2014 for den smittefarlige stafylokok, der er kendt unden betegnelsen MRSACC398.
ByFiona Harvey, Mary Carson, Maggie O'Kane and Andrew Wasley |
The discovery on UK shelves of pork contaminated with a livestock strain of MRSA prompts calls to curb misuse of antibiotics in intensive farming. Pork sold by several leading British supermarkets has been found to be contaminated with a strain of the superbug MRSA that is linked to the overuse of powerful antibiotics on factory farms, a Guardian investigation has revealed. Livestock-associated MRSA CC398, which originates in animals, has been found in pork products sold in Sainsbury’s, Asda, the Co-operative and Tesco. Of the 100 packets of pork chops, bacon and gammon tested by the Guardian, nine – eight Danish and one Irish – were found to have been infected with CC398. CC398 in meat, which poses little risk to the British public, can be transmitted by touching infected meat products or coming into contact with contaminated livestock or people, although it can be killed through cooking.
The threat of MRSA in hospitals has generated an urgent response, but an MRSA variant is spreading from farm livestock to supermarket meat unchecked.
MRSA is best known in the UK for causing hospital-acquired infections – and many deaths. There has been little human to human transmission of the superbug in the community, but it is particularly dangerous in hospitals because it can colonise wounds easily, especially where patients’ immunity is low. It has been associated with poor hygiene in hospitals, but the main factor behind the spread of MRSA has been the over-prescription of antibiotics, which has allowed a rather mundane germ that lives on many of our bodies without causing any problems to become far more dangerous to human health. CC398, a new variant of MRSA, emerged in animals and is found in intensively farmed animals (primarily pigs, but also cows and chickens), from where it can be transmitted to humans.
Less than 1 percent of farmers have in the course of a year been fined, compared with the estimated level of 5-10 percent of farmers to be fined, when the Danish Parliament in the autumn 2010 decided to minimize the use of antibiotics to pigs by introducing a yellow scheme with fines to farmers for heavy use of antibiotics.
See the discussion in the Danish parliament on the decision of yellow scheme. All together since the introduction of yellow scheme there have been 130 cases of fines giving to farmers according to documents which Investigative Reporting Denmark has obtained, with names of all the farmers getting a fine. Excel-file with all data on 130 cases of yellow scheme
Original documents showing fines to farmers:
Yellow scheme in 2011
Yellow scheme in 2012
Yellow scheme in 2013
Yellow scheme in 2014
According to the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration only 0.3 to 0.8 pct of the farms received a yellow scheme in the years from 2011-2014, during which the system has been in effect. The documents also show only 2 farmers instead of an estimated 200 received an increased fine and surveillance and no one received a red scheme or had their number of pigs reduced. Authorities claim that this result is because of the success of the system.
Access to documents from the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration shows the authorities are hiding activities in the MRSA-case. It also shows that officials let farmers refuse to participate in test.
The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration claims that it has not shared test-result with the farmers’ association, Landbrug & Fødevarer. //
View note
Documents from the case shows a different story:
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The authority claims the test results have not been validated. In the documents it is made clear that a farm is regarded MRSA-positive if one out of five samples is positive.
