F18+ Escherichia coli infections causing post-weaning diarrhoea and/or oedema disease are a major cause of economic losses in pig industry. To date, no preventive strategy can protect pigs from F18+ E. coli infections. One of the most attractive approaches to eliminate F18+ E. coli infections is the selection for pigs that are resistant to F18+ E. coli infections. However, this strategy was not believed to be favourable because of reports of genetic association with the stress-susceptibility gene in the Swiss Landrace. To investigate this potential association more thoroughly, 131 randomly selected Belgian hybrid pigs were genotyped for both the F18+ E. coli resistance alleles (FUT1A) and the stress-susceptibility alleles (RYR1T) and their association was investigated by determining the linkage disequilibrium. This linkage disequilibrium (LD = − 0.0149) is close to zero and does not differ significantly from 0 (likelihood ratio test , P = 0.29), demonstrating no association between the FUT1A and RYR1T alleles. Furthermore, only a small fraction (4.6%) of the Belgian pigs was found to be resistant to F18+ E. coli infections. Our results suggest that selection for F18+ E. coli resistant pigs might be an attractive approach to prevent pigs from F18+ E. coli infections, unlike to what has previously been postulated. Annelies Coddens, Frank Verdonck, Martin Mulinge, Els Goyvaerts, Cora Miry, Bruno Goddeeris, Luc Duchateau and Eric Cox, The possibility of positive selection for both F18+ Escherichia coli and stress resistant pigs opens new perspectives for pig breeding, Veterinary Microbiology, Volume 126, Issues 1-3, 1 January 2008, Pages 210-215