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Chicken Truck Funk

By On · Add Comment · In antibiotic resistant, bacteria, chicken truck, chickens, infectious
Eeew! Wanna get grossed out? Drive behind a chicken truck–flat bed to be exact. If you do, make sure to close your windows. That’s because the funk that flies off chicken trucks is infectious.

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University checked their cars for bacterial samples after driving 17 miles behind chicken trucks on the Delmarva Peninsula (a coastal area that includes parts of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia), chosen for its high volume of broiler chickens being transported per acre. The scientists drove up and down the highway multiple times with windows rolled down and air conditioners turned off. Chicken funk shot into the open windows. Sounds gross, doesn’t it? They then collected air samples, and swabs off the doors and sodas cans to check bacterial levels. They were studying the potential of infectious transmission coming from poultry transportation. What they found is enough to make your skin crawl: High levels of bacteria were present in every trial and they even found some antibiotic resistant strains. Yecccch!!!

The good news is that most of the bacteria present in the chicken sludge is usually spread by food or water, not air. But, either way, getting caught behind a chicken truck is a nasty endeavor. The researchers advised that anybody getting stuck behind a chicken truck on the road should pass it quickly. And please…roll up the windows.

Another Sexual Health Warning

By On · Add Comment · In antibiotic resistant, antibiotics, gay men, gonorrhea, illicit drug use, infection, Methicillin-resistant staph aureus (MRSA), penicillin, Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), staph aureus, syphilis

Heed the warning, readers: Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are on the rise, and some pretty nasty ones are out there to get you. You already know from an earlier post that syphilis is back with a vengeance, but you can add to that rectal gonorrhea and new HIV infections for the unwise. Rounding out the mix is the antibiotic resistant strain of Staphylococcus aureus, which researchers think is being transmitted among gay men during sex.

A new study appearing in the Annals of Internal Medicine reports that methicillin-resistant Staph aureus (MRSA) is showing up outside of hospitals in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles. It states that gay men are 13 times more likely to get infected than heterosexual men. Researchers believe that the infection is being spread through sexual activity, and that illicit drug use and increased risky sexual behavior is fueling the transmission. Because Staph aureus can, and in some people does, colonize around the anus, those having sex which might break the skin are at a greater risk of infection.

I don’t have to tell you how dangerous MRSA is. It’s resistant to penicillins, a common class of antibiotics, and is therefore difficult to treat, often requiring intravenous antibiotic drug therapy…which ain’t cheap. If the infection gets bad enough it can lead to death–approximately 19,000 people were killed by MRSA (mostly in hospitals) in 2005.

So what’s the advice? C’mon people: Use protection without exception! Safe sex is still in. It better be, because the alternative just isn’t worth it. And not to sound like a Moral Majorist here, but…keep the number of sexual partners to a reasonably modest amount, sheesh. Hey, I’m not knocking a good orgy; heavens no. But the days of wine and roses are over–they ended in the 70s. Free love costs beaucoup bucks now. So be smart. No glove, no love. Simple as that.

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