Missing link

It's possible to become ill just breathing the air around factory farms. A study by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health finds that the same antibiotic-resistant bacteria that you can get by eating pork that is not fully cooked can also be inhaled from the air that wafts from swine feedlots, according to researcher Amy Chapin, whose study is published in the February 2005 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives.

Although outbreaks of salmonella and other illnesses have not yet been traced to airborne bacteria, previous studies have documented high rates of respiratory and gastrointestinal problems among people who live near large-scale livestock operations. Chapin tells VT that her research may supply the reason.

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