What Potentially Deadly Bacteria Are Often Found in Ground Beef

Study: U.Southward. meat supply tainted

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Staphylococcus aureus can cause serious infections and even death in humans
• Livestock themselves are the source of the bacteria
• Precautions including cooking meat thoroughly tin can prevent cross-contamination

(Health.com) -- Almost half of the meat and poultry sold at U.Southward. supermarkets and grocery stores contains a blazon of bacteria that is potentially harmful to humans, a new study estimates.

Researchers tested 136 packages of craven, turkey, pork, and footing beef purchased at 26 grocery stores in five cities around the country, and found that 47 pct contained Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), a common cause of infection in people.

What's more, roughly half of the contaminated samples contained strains of the bacteria that were resistant to at least iii antibiotics, such every bit penicillin and tetracycline. Some strains were resistant to a half dozen or more.

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Although the high contagion rates may sound alarming, the threat these bacteria pose to humans is still unclear.

"We know that well-nigh half of our food supply'southward meat and poultry are contaminated with S. aureus, and more than half of those are multidrug resistant," says Lance B. Price, Ph.D., the senior writer of the study, which was published Fri in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. "What we don't know [is] how often these transfer to people. Nosotros need more than studies to quantify the public health impact."

Due south. aureus, and drug-resistant strains in particular, can cause serious infections and even death in humans. Still, elementary precautions including cooking meat thoroughly, washing hands after handling meat, and keeping raw meat separate from other foods to prevent cross-contamination are believed to neutralize the risk of infection, co-ordinate to experts not involved in the inquiry.

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"Numerous studies of this type washed in other countries...have mostly come up with the same findings, that multidrug-resistant Due south. aureus are present in a variety of brute meats," says Pascal James Imperato, M.D., the dean of the School of Public Health at SUNY--Downstate Medical Middle, in Brooklyn. "Just, then far, no one has been able to depict a connection between the presence of those bacteria in meats and human affliction."

Multidrug-resistant bacteria strains are "ever a business concern for humans," says M. Gabriela Bowden, Ph.D., a bacteria skillful and banana professor at the Texas A&M Wellness Scientific discipline Center, in Houston. "Only if you follow the hygiene rules that you lot would follow for Salmonella or E. coli, there shouldn't be a problem."

The meat, which was sold under 80 different brands, was purchased in Los Angeles; Chicago; Washington, D.C.; Fort Lauderdale; and Flagstaff, Ariz. The diverseness and number of S. aureus strains found on the samples propose that the livestock themselves -- rather than contamination during processing and packaging -- are the source of the leaner, the study notes.

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Each year farmers and ranchers requite millions of pounds of antibiotics to farm animals, most of them good for you, to make them grow faster and to preclude -- rather than treat -- diseases, says Price, the director of the Middle for Food Microbiology and Environmental Wellness at the Translational Genomics Research Institute, a nonprofit arrangement in Flagstaff.

The combination of bacteria, antibiotics, and livestock living in close quarters creates the perfect environs for bacteria to thrive and mutate, which may explicate the high levels of drug-resistant South. aureus seen in the study, he adds.

Near all (96 percent) of the Due south. aureus strains Price and his colleagues isolated had adult resistance to at least one antibiotic. Strains resistant to iii or more than antibiotics were found in 79 percentage of turkey, 64 percent of pork, 35 percentage of beef, and 26 per centum of chicken samples.

"It's four dissimilar meats from 4 different animals in different geographical areas," Bowden says. "[Due south. aureus] may be more prevalent than nosotros recollect."

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Methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA), which has been a item menace to humans in hospitals and communities alike, was establish in one package each of beefiness, turkey, and pork, though not chicken. This sample size wasn't large plenty to go far at an authentic estimate of its prevalence in meat nationwide, according to the study.

The Centers for Affliction Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Assistants, and the U.Due south. Department of Agriculture currently monitor the state'south meat supply for testify of four major types of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (including Salmonella and East. coli). The study findings suggest that S. aureus should be screened for regularly also, the researchers say.

Copyright Wellness Magazine 2011

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Source: http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/04/15/bacteria.in.half.US.meat/index.html