Meat Industry Spreads MRSA: Go Vegetarian Now

COMMENTARY | When I first went vegetarian seven years ago, I chose to do it for the environment. Knowing the impact of the meat industry on our planet -- the pollution of waterways, the emission of greenhouse gases, and the clear-cutting of ancient rainforest -- I could not, in good conscience, allow myself to eat meat. Concern for the planet still plays a role in my decision to avoid meat, but another factor also comes into play: concern for the health of my fellow humans. The meat industry is largely responsible for a dangerous, looming pandemic that currently claims the lives of 20,000 Americans each year. Out of concern and respect for those people, I choose not to eat meat.

According to a report by ABC's Mikaela Conley, new strains of the bacterium methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureas, or MRSA, are continuously discovered in livestock, and these strains may be spreading to human beings. On large-scale factory farms, where animals are kept in unnaturally confined, unsanitary quarters, livestock must be fed massive amounts of antibiotics in order to prevent infection. Bacteria quickly build up resistance to these drugs, with the particularly virulent "superbug" MRSA becoming increasingly untreatable. When these bacteria jump from animal to human, severe infection and death can ensue.

My personal experience with MRSA makes the bug an especially sensitive topic. At 17, I developed a horrendously painful boil under my arm. After two minor surgeries and three mysteriously ineffective rounds of antibiotics, a culture revealed that MRSA was to blame for the infection. Even after the doctors discovered this, it took a year and a half of monthly minor surgeries, combined with regular injections of the world's strongest antibiotics, before the infection finally resolved. I was young, healthy, and blessed with access to medical care. Had I been older, immunocompromised, or uninsured, the bug could have easily claimed my life.

MRSA can and does claim new victims each day, and the numbers of casualties will grow higher as we continue to overuse antibiotics -- especially in livestock. Although the increasingly resistant MRSA strains aren't likely to jump to human victims through prepared meat, they can easily spread to the people who work on factory farms. I find this particularly disturbing, since many factory farm workers are undocumented immigrants, and almost all lack access to medical care. This means that the infections in farm workers are likely to go undiagnosed and untreated, so they can spread rapidly to the general population.

The abuse of antibiotics absolutely must stop. Overuse of these miracle drugs has led to a new era of untreatable illness, and we are mere decades away from pandemic if we don't change our ways. While antibiotics are necessary in many cases for human health, the factory farm industry is a colossal and dangerous machine that we do not need, that does no good to humans, animals, or the environment.

You do not have to be a tree-hugger or an animal lover to see the benefits of vegetarianism. Respect for human life, and a desire to halt the spread of untreatable illness, can and should be an equally valid motivation. I can't change the world or stop the spread of MRSA myself, but I'll keep declining my friends' invitations to McDonald's -- not just for myself, for cattle, or for the planet, but also to help save the lives of other human beings.

Juniper Russo is an activist, freelance writer, health advocate, and full-time mom living in Chattanooga, Tenn.

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Havana Journal: Real Estate Fever Spreads in Cuba

But roofs — even half-missing ones — are a hot commodity these days in Havana, which has been swept by a bout of real estate fever. So Yoél Bacallao, a 35-year-old entrepreneur, offered to repair Ms. Martínez’s dilapidated house for free on one condition: that she let him build an apartment of his own on top of it.

“It was as if a ray of light had come down from the sky,” said Ms. Martínez, 41, who would hang laundry in the roofless living room and sweep furiously during rainstorms to keep the rest of the house from flooding. “I have been watching this house fall apart around me for years.”

All over the capital and in many provincial towns, Cubans are beginning to inject money into the island’s ragged real estate, spurred by government measures to stimulate construction and a new law that allows them to trade property for the first time in 50 years.

The measures are President Raúl Castro’s biggest maneuver yet as he strives to get capital flowing on the island, encourage private enterprise and take pressure off the economically crippled state.

For decades, the government banned real estate sales and kept a jealous grip on construction. Materials were scarce, red tape endless and inspectors meddlesome. Black marketeers would deliver cinder blocks by cover of darkness, and purchasing a bag of sand was a furtive process akin to buying drugs.

But during the past two months the state has reduced paperwork, stocked construction stores, legalized private contractors and begun offering homeowners subsidies and credits.

On many streets, the chip of hammers and gritty slosh of cement mixing rises above the sparse traffic as Cubans paint facades, build extensions or gut old houses. Still, it is generally small-scale stuff: Mr. Bacallao, who has savings from his business repairing mobile phones, expects to spend about $10,000 on his project.

“Before, you had to sneak a bag of cement here, a bag of cement there,” he said. Mr. Bacallao, who rents a tiny apartment with his girlfriend, built a rooftop house three years ago, but the state confiscated it because he could not explain how he came by the materials. If this house works out, he will move his daughters to Havana from the provinces.

“Now I can explain where I got the materials,” he said. “I can explain where I got the money. No problem.”

Behind scruffy porticos and walls of bougainvillea, the wheels of the property trade are turning. Unofficial brokers — who are still outlawed in Cuba — say they have never been so busy, trawling the streets and the Internet for leads and fielding calls from prospective buyers.

Cubisima, an online classified service, said the number of hits on its real estate page tripled to an average of 900 per day after the new property law took effect on Nov. 10. The law allows Cubans to buy and sell their houses, and even own a second home outside the cities, though it still bars most foreigners from buying.

It is a crude market, where househunters rely on word of mouth and prices are based as much on excitement as on any clear sense of property values, according to interviews with homeowners, brokers and experts. Buyers, who at the top end are mainly Cuban émigrés and Cubans married to foreigners, often declare a fraction of what they pay, and money sometimes changes hands overseas, suggesting that the government’s hope of reaping significant tax revenues may be at least partly thwarted.

On a recent day, a stylish flight attendant showed a viewer around the pretty three-bedroom home she hopes will fetch $150,000; a mile away, an elderly widow held out for an offer of $500,000 for her big, unkempt 1950s house — to be deposited in Spain, please.

Many sellers plan to downsize, so they can live better or leave. Victoria Pérez, a retired doctor, put her spacious house and two-bedroom annex on sale last month for $80,000. She hopes to buy something smaller and put aside about $20,000 to live on and visit her daughter in the United States.

“To earn $20,000 would take 20 years,” she said. “This opens up a whole world of opportunities.”

Statistics are few, and brokers admit that the curious outnumber the serious. The National Housing Institute processed just 364 sales in the three weeks after the new law took effect.

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