Dr Mark Holmes, a veterinary scientist who led the study at the University of Cambridge, said milk from infected cows was safe to drink because the bug, along with other bacteria, was killed by pasteurisation. According to a report in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases, the bug appears to be on the rise, with the number of human cases in England and Scotland increasing from one in 2002 to nine in 2009 and 12 last year. 'Financial pressure' 
 
 MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, is a drug-resistant form of a usually harmless bacterium which can be deadly when it infects wounds. The drugs are given to treat mastitis and other infections in cattle, but overuse encourages resistant bacterial strains to emerge. Helen Browning, director of the organic food trade group the Soil Association, said the finding highlighted the need to minimise antibiotic use on farms. We need to get farmers off this treadmill, even if that means that milk has to cost a few pennies more".  Scientists in the UK have discovered a new strain of MRSA that appears to spread to humans from cattle and can cause life-threatening illness. The discovery of the new strain has led to calls for a rethink of how antibiotics are used on farms. The bug was unlikely to survive in unpasteurised cheese, Holmes added. It is not known how the patients became infected with the new strain, but a likely route would be through contact with infected cattle or people who work with the animals. "Whether we are looking at the beginning of a small peak, or a curve that will continue to rise, we don't know, but it does appear to be rising at the moment," Holmes said. But the presence of MRSA in the national herd will put farm workers at risk of becoming carriers of the infection and spreading it to the wider community. "The risk of contracting this new strain of MRSA through drinking milk is extremely low because the vast majority of cows' milk is pasteurised and the pasteurisation process destroys all types of MRSA," he added.
– A new strain of the drug-resistant "superbug" MRSA has been found in British cows, and it appears to be spreading to people. The strain, identified in cows' milk by researchers studying udder infections, is genetically very different from the dozens of other strains of superbug identified, reports the BBC. Pasteurization kills the bug so milk drinkers shouldn't worry, the researchers say, but farm workers could be at risk of becoming carriers of the infection and could conceivably pass it on to others. Illnesses that cross the species barrier can be particularly lethal. Finding a new MRSA strain in both humans and cows is "very worrying," said one of the researchers who discovered the phenomenon. Environmental groups say the discovery of the bug shows that the problem of antibiotic overuse at farms needs to be addressed, the Guardian notes. "Dairy systems are becoming ever more antibiotic-dependent," the director of the Soil Association says. "We need to get farmers off this treadmill, even if that means that milk has to cost a few pennies more."