Methicillin-resistant Staph aureus [MRSA] is becoming harder and harder to classify as something "rare and exotic".

Yesterday's USA Today is a case in point:

 

MRSA 'superbug' found in ocean, public beaches  Steve Sternberg [Excerpts]

SAN FRANCISCO — Public beaches may be one source of the surging prevalence of the superbug known as multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, researchers here said Saturday.

A study by researchers at the University of Washington has for the first time identified methicillin-resistant Staph aureus (MRSA) in marine water and beach sand from seven public beaches on the Puget Sound.

The researchers identified Staph bacteria on nine of 10 public beaches that they tested. Seven of 13 Staph aureus samples, found on five beaches, were multidrug resistant, says lead investigator Marilyn Roberts.

"Our results suggest that public beaches may be a reservoir for possible transmission of MRSA," she told the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy here, the leading international conference on new and resurgent diseases

[snip]

Until a decade ago, most multidrug-resistant Staph aureus infections were found in hospitals among severely ill patients. That changed about seven years ago with the emergence of a strain hardy enough, and virulent enough to infect healthy people, usually in their skin and soft tissues.

Since about 30% of healthy people carry Staph aureus, most people are able to survive infection. But it is fatal in about 20% of people who develop MRSA bloodstream infections and 40% of those who develop MRSA pneumonia. It has emerged as a killer of people with severe influenza, including the new H1N1, or swine, flu.

Curiously, Roberts says, five of the samples found on the beach and in the sand more closely resembled hospital-acquired MRSA than the bacteria found in the community. Three of the samples, from three beaches 10 miles apart, were virtually identical, she says. "One would think they came from the same source," Roberts added.

The most likely scenario, she says, is that the source is environmental, not human, but "where all of these organisms are coming from and how they're getting seeded (on the beaches) is not clear." Tests of ocean water and sand taken from two beaches in Southern California turned up no Staph aureus at all.

[snip]

Roberts says there may be much more MRSA than her team's "grab and go" sampling experiments indicated. "The fact that we found these organisms suggests that the amount is much higher than we previously thought," she says.

Lance Peterson, a University of Chicago infectious disease specialist who was not involved in the study, says, "Staph is a salt-loving organism. It's not surprising to see it in the ocean."

I would never presume to guess where the MRSA came from, or whether it's environmental versus human, but I not only believe the environmental source the more likely, I invest a great deal of hope that it is. 

Perhaps Puget Sound has its own version of Dr. Frederick E Reed who was fined and disciplined for using an amputated human foot as bait in his crab trap in August 1996 on one of the Charleston SC area beaches.  Perhaps Puget Sound has its own version of a crematorium like that of the one operated in Noble, Georgia where it was discovered that bodies were not cremated as contracted, but stacked here and there for as many as 20 years.

As grizzly as those possibilities are at least they would be confined to Puget Sound.

The possibilities do not have to be quite so grizzly though, it has come to light that MRSA is also in our pets...

From DVM

LONDON-An alert was issued in late March concerning Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) in dogs. Hundreds of people in Britain have died from MRSA, and now it's spreading among pets and farm animals, British officials report.

"There have been cases of MRSA in the veterinary population, and these are of great concern to veterinary surgeons here and abroad," says Dr. Bob Partridge, president of the British Veterinary Hospitals Association, in a prepared statement "The main concern is trying to ensure we have as few cases as possible by encouraging veterinary surgeons to adopt best practices in operating procedures."

Anonymous. "MRSA piques concern in Britain." DVM. 2005. 

If there is periodic "bad behavior" when it comes to the disposal of human body parts/remains, how much more so is the possibility of improper handling of our deceased pets?

Yes, as distasteful and stomach turning as these possibilities are, I would much prefer them to the thoughts of our beaches and coastal waters teaming with unchecked MRSA... and I don't even swim in the ocean.  But then, I don't swim in pools and hot tubs either - because as everyone already knows:  They are teaming with all manner of stranger's germs.