More bad news from pig country

It is kinda funny moving back to the Midwest after spending almost 20 years on the east coast. To be specific, I grew up in the East North Central region (Great Lakes States) and now find myself in the West North Central (Great Plains States); never mind that Iowa isn't actually in the Great Plains.  People are always asking why I would move back or what's it like there in flyover country or the heartland or Middle America - I just smile and say that "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking and all the children are above average." Most of the over-stressed, over-crowded coastal folk have at least heard of Garrison Keillor, so that usually changes the conversation...

The Atlanta Braves' new mascot?

OK, so Maryn McKenna has a nice post over on her Wired Superbug blog discussing two studies looking at MRSA in US retail meats. She first reviews a study by Blake Hanson in Tara Smith's U. Iowa lab that found MRSA in retail pork including spa type t034 (ST398). 

The second paper from University of Maryland College Park included testing of 694 samples of retail ground beef, ground pork and ground turkey in the DC area. The somewhat surprising finding was the 17% of turkey and 17% of pork samples were contaminated with MRSA.

The funny part of McKenna's post was that she said that Tara Smith's work was particularly important because "they probably know ST398 better than any other US team looking at the strain" (OK, that's good) "and unlike the other research groups, they are embedded in pig country." ???

We can all agree that Iowa produces a lot of pork, but what about Virginia which is #4 or #5 in turkey production.  I guess, we can refer to people in Alexandria as being from turkey country. Oh, and Georgia is #1 in broiler production, so people from Atlanta are now from chicken country.  I guess, this re-transplanted Midwesterner is becoming overly sensitive...

Addendum: Strictly speaking, PIGS countries are Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain which are in the midst of an economic crisis. Iowa's unemployment rate sits at 6% and is operating in a close to balanced budget.