The United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced that King Soopers, Inc. of Denver, Colorado, was recalling 466,236 pounds of ground beef products due to potential Salmonella Typhimurim DT104 contamination yesterday. The recall was initiated after public health officials from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and the
Antibiotic use in food animals addressed by House committee
The New York Times reports on yesterday’s House Committee on Rules hearing on "H.R. 1549 – Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act of 2009." In today’s article, titled, “Administration Seeks to Restrict Antibiotics in Livestock,” the Times refers to testimony by FDA Deputy Commissioner, Joshua M. Sharfstein, M.D.
In his testimony
Some bacteria that cause food poisoning resistant to antibiotic treatment
Mike the Mad Biologist wrote a post titled, “Shigella, Children, and Antibiotic Resistance, in which he cites a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC study emphasized the fact that some strains of Shigella, a bacterium that is sometimes foodborne and can lead to serious illness and even death
Time bombs lace most U.S. meat
Diane Carman of the Denver Post reports that on a blistering hot day, rancher Sue Jarrett took two carloads of city slickers on the tour de manure. They started at the sprawling Swift & Co. feedlot in Greeley, checked out a confined buffalo farming operation, peeked in on some dairies, visited one of the largest feedlots in the world in Yuma and ended up at her ranch near Wray.
She fixed them supper, and they stayed all night. She served pork roast and roast beef, a big salad, stir-fried vegetables. The best part, though, was what she didn’t serve.
Because she knew how the animals had been raised, she could say with confidence that they weren’t laced with antibiotics and they weren’t hosts for antibiotic-resistant bacteria like most of the animals raised for meat in America.
And this was one crowd that could really appreciate it.
The guests of the natural-meat activist were scientists and activists who lobby Congress and federal agencies to take action to preserve antibiotics for essential medical treatment.
And unlike most of us, they pay very close attention to what they eat.Continue Reading Time bombs lace most U.S. meat
FDA Bans Use Of Antibiotic In Poultry
Anna Wilde Mathews and Zachary Goldfarb of the Wall Street Journal report that fearing that the animal drug Baytril — used to fight infections in chickens — could pose health risks to humans, the Food and Drug Administration decided to ban its use in poultry.
The decision yesterday to restrict the Bayer AG antibiotic, which takes effect Sept. 12, marks the first time that the agency has ended the use of an animal drug because of worries that it could lead to antibiotic-resistant pathogens in humans.
“We made the determination that the drug was not safe,” said Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, which first asked for the drug’s removal in 2000. The FDA’s top official “has confirmed our original decision.” The FDA’s standard is that food from animals that have taken a particular drug must carry a “reasonable certainty of no harm,” and the agency didn’t feel that poultry treated with Baytril met that standard, he said.Continue Reading FDA Bans Use Of Antibiotic In Poultry
Antibiotic Resistance
An excerpt from Secret Agents: The Menace of Emerging Infections by Madeline Drexler, published by the Joseph Henry Press (2002). Reprinted by permission. To read the full text online, go to http://www.nap.edu/.
Some experts estimate more than half of the antibiotics produced in this country are fed to farm animals, mostly to boost their growth rate. In this excerpt from her book Secret Agents, Madeline Drexler chronicles how that practice has led to strains of drug-resistant bacteria, forcing doctors to prescribe higher and higher doses of medicine to combat these more resilient pathogens. “Farms are some of the most insidious sources of antibiotic resistance,” Drexler writes. “Whether carnivore or vegetarian, you cannot avoid the aftermath of antibiotics applied lower in the food chain.” A former medical columnist for The Boston Globe, Drexler was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1996 to 1997.Continue Reading Antibiotic Resistance