High levels of drug-resistant strains of bacteria that cause staph infections are present in nearly half of the meat and poultry sold at U.S. grocery stores, a study says. And researchers found that the food animals themselves — rather than processing or storage practices — generally are the source of the contamination.
Experts from the Translational Genomics Research Institute, a nonprofit biomedical research center in Phoenix, analyzed beef, chicken, pork and turkey from 26 stores in conducting the first assessment of antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in the nation’s food supply.
The analysis, published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, showed that 47 percent of the samples were contaminated with the widespread S. aureus, and 52 percent of those bacteria were resistant to at least three classes of antibiotics. “For the first time, we know how much of our meat and poultry is contaminated with antibiotic-resistant Staph, and it is substantial,” Dr. Lance B. Price, senior author of the study, said in a news release.
The researchers cautioned that the impact of the contamination on public health is “unclear.” Staph should be killed with proper cooking and European food safety regulators have concluded that the risk for drug-resistant staph infection from food handling and consumption is low.
At the same time, Staph could still could pose a risk to consumers because of improper food handling or cross-contamination in the kitchen. The study also provides additional evidence that industrial food animal operations are ideal breeding grounds for the bacteria, which can cause a range of illnesses from minor skin infections to life-threatening diseases, such as pneumonia, endocarditis and sepsis.
A commentary published recently in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives also expressed concerns about antibiotic-resistant bacteria from food animals infecting humans.
The commentary said the practice of giving antibiotics to livestock and poultry in their feed allows drug-resistant bacteria to develop because the doses hinge on an animal’s eating habits. Overdosing, through heavy eating of the feed, can poison the animal, while insufficient or inconsistent doses can spur the growth of drug-resistant microbes.
The U.S. government routinely surveys retail meat and poultry for four types of drug-resistant bacteria, but S. aureus is not among them.
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