An Op-ed piece in the New York Times dramatically recounts an epidemic wherein the late Tom Anderson, who was a family doctor in  northwestern Indiana was  "puzzled  then frightened by strange rashes on his patients that began as innocuous bumps or “pimples from hell” and quickly became lesions as big as saucers, fiery red and agonizing to touch".

Cultures turned out to be MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) which is the “superbug” or “flesh-eating bacteria” with strains showing up in hospitals and gym rooms.

Anderson wondered why folks in a rural town in Indiana were plagued by MRSA when he began to question the hog farms outside of town.

Could the pigs be incubating and spreading the disease?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/opinion/12kristof.html