Today in Mutating Superbugs: MRSA in Your Milk
Unlike a chocolate chip cookie, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus does not taste better in milk. But a new strain of that superbug, aka MRSA, is exactly what British scientists have discovered in milk samples. This news comes on the same day that a "mutant" strain of E. coli was fingered as the source of a severe food poisoning epidemic currently gripping Europe.
The pasteurization process kills MRSA, but the discovery raises unsettling questions about whether or not cows might be acting as "reservoirs" in the development of new strains of drug-resistent bacteria. Cows: Adorable Sources of Cottage Cheese and Ice Cream, or Incubators of Doom? Discuss. [Reuters, photo via Shutterstock]