VOA标准英语2013--Industrial Livestock Farms Linked to Staph

 

Industrial Livestock¹ Farms Linked to Staph

As economies grow in developing countries, more of them are adopting a Western-style diet. That means eating a lot more meat. As a result, the number of industrial or factory livestock farms has increased. But new research is raising health questions about those farms, which treat animals with antibiotics³.

Industrial or factory farms raise large numbers of animals often in very confined buildings. Antibiotics are used in the animals’ feed and water – not just to cure illness – but to help speed growth. But there’s a difference between workers on industrial farms and those employed at farms that do not use antibiotics.

Drug-resistant⁴ bacteria were found in the noses of industrial livestock workers in the southern U.S. state of North Carolina. These bacteria are commonly called staph.  However, no such bacteria were found in those employed on antibiotic²-free farms.

North Carolina is a major producer of hogs⁵ and poultry⁶. Industrial livestock farms use large confinement⁷ buildings, while antibiotic-free farms generally raise animals outdoors on pastureland.

Study co-author Christopher Heaney said concerns had been raised by community groups and researchers, not only in North Carolina, but even earlier in the Midwestern state of Iowa. 

“This work built on those community-driven discussions around air pollution and concerns with odor and health and quality of life. There were questions developing about concerns of people, who are working to help produce livestock – questions around exposures that these workers may be experiencing.”

Heaney is assistant professor of Environmental Health Sciences and Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Similar concerns had been raised abroad, as well.

“As scientists, we were following the emerging story in Europe, which had shown that there was a new strain, or a new sequence type, of staph aureus bacteria, with particular drug resistance to methicillin, known as MRSA. And these previous studies in Europe had detected new strains of drug resistant staph aureus from livestock, first among farmworkers and subsequently in hospital and community settings,” he said.

MRSA is found most often in hospitals or other health-related facilities. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says MRSA can contaminate bed linens⁸, bed rails, bathroom fixtures⁹ and medical equipment. Symptoms include fever, chills and boils. In severe cases, mortality rates can be as high as 50 percent.

Heaney said, “The workers participating in our study were not experiencing staph infections at the time of the study. But when antibiotic resistant bacteria do cause infections they can be harder to treat. And we do know that staph aureus is an opportunistic pathogen. It can also be present in the absence of any disease or any symptoms.”

Heaney described it as “remarkable” that staph aureus bacteria were not found in the noses of those working on farms not using antibiotics.

“While everyone in the study had direct or indirect contact with livestock, only industrial workers carried antibiotic resistant staph aureus with multiple genetic¹⁰ characteristics linked to livestock. This means that we did not observe that the antibiotic-free workers were carrying these livestock associated strains of staph aureus, as they’re called, with characteristics of antibiotic resistance,” he said.

But why the difference?

“That’s a good question,” he said,  “And I think we’re going to need to spend a lot of time in the future developing studies to try and address these questions. We’ve taken some important first steps, but I think we still need to continue to generate information and generate knowledge to help better understand the dynamics¹¹ of livestock production with versus¹² without the use of antibiotics.”

Some other big unanswered questions include:  Are industrial farmworkers – those with staph aureus bacteria in their noses – actually at greater risk of developing an infection? And could livestock-related staph germs find their way into hospitals and communities similar to what happened in Europe? Heaney said that more studies are also needed to answer those questions.

1 livestock   

n.家畜，牲畜

参考例句：

• Both men and livestock are flourishing.人畜两旺。
• The heavy rains and flooding killed scores of livestock.暴雨和大水淹死了许多牲口。

2 antibiotic   

adj.抗菌的；n.抗生素

参考例句：

• The doctor said that I should take some antibiotic.医生说我应该服些用抗生素。
• Antibiotic can be used against infection.抗菌素可以用来防止感染。

3 antibiotics   

n.（用作复数）抗生素；（用作单数）抗生物质的研究；抗生素，抗菌素( antibiotic的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• the discovery of antibiotics in the 20th century 20世纪抗生素的发现
• The doctor gave me a prescription for antibiotics. 医生给我开了抗生素。

4 resistant   

adj.(to)抵抗的，有抵抗力的

参考例句：

• Many pests are resistant to the insecticide.许多害虫对这种杀虫剂有抵抗力。
• They imposed their government by force on the resistant population.他们以武力把自己的统治强加在持反抗态度的人民头上。

5 hogs   

n.（尤指喂肥供食用的）猪( hog的名词复数 )；（供食用的）阉公猪；彻底地做某事；自私的或贪婪的人

参考例句：

• 'sounds like -- like hogs grunting. “像——像是猪发出的声音。 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险
• I hate the way he hogs down his food. 我讨厌他那副狼吞虎咽的吃相。 来自辞典例句

6 poultry   

n.家禽，禽肉

参考例句：

• There is not much poultry in the shops. 商店里禽肉不太多。
• What do you feed the poultry on? 你们用什么饲料喂养家禽?

7 confinement   

n.幽禁，拘留，监禁；分娩；限制，局限

参考例句：

• He spent eleven years in solitary confinement.他度过了11年的单独监禁。
• The date for my wife's confinement was approaching closer and closer.妻子分娩的日子越来越近了。

8 linens   

n.亚麻布( linen的名词复数 )；家庭日用织品

参考例句：

• All linens and towels are provided. 提供全套日用织品和毛巾。 来自辞典例句
• Linen, Table Linens, Chair Covers, Bed and Bath Linens. Linen. 采购产品亚麻布，亚麻布，椅子套子，床和沭浴亚麻布。 来自互联网

9 fixtures   

（房屋等的）固定装置( fixture的名词复数 )； 如（浴盆、抽水马桶）； 固定在某位置的人或物； （定期定点举行的）体育活动

参考例句：

• The insurance policy covers the building and any fixtures contained therein. 保险单为这座大楼及其中所有的设施保了险。
• The fixtures had already been sold and the sum divided. 固定设备已经卖了，钱也分了。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

10 genetic   

adj.遗传的，遗传学的

参考例句：

• It's very difficult to treat genetic diseases.遗传性疾病治疗起来很困难。
• Each daughter cell can receive a full complement of the genetic information.每个子细胞可以收到遗传信息的一个完全补偿物。

11 dynamics   

n.力学，动力学，动力，原动力；动态

参考例句：

• In order to succeed,you must master complicated knowledge of dynamics.要取得胜利，你必须掌握很复杂的动力学知识。
• Dynamics is a discipline that cannot be mastered without extensive practice.动力学是一门不做大量习题就不能掌握的学科。

12 versus   

prep.以…为对手，对；与…相比之下

参考例句：

• The big match tonight is England versus Spain.今晚的大赛是英格兰对西班牙。
• The most exciting game was Harvard versus Yale.最富紧张刺激的球赛是哈佛队对耶鲁队。