May 26, 2011

US should encourage prohibition of antibiotic-resistant salmonella in meat

The nonprofit food safety watchdog group, Centre for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) wants the USDA to announce four Salmonella strains as "adulterants" under federal regulation, making goods that contain them illegal to sell.

Ground meat and poultry found to contain antibiotic-resistant strains of Salmonella should be recalled from the marketplace or withheld from commerce, according to a regulatory petition filed yesterday (May 25) by CSPI.

CSPI is also urging testing for antibiotic-resistant Salmonella in ground meat and poultry, citing a number of major outbreaks of foodborne illnesses linked to the four strains. Those illnesses are harder for physicians to treat, resulting in longer hospitalisations and increased mortality, according to the group.

USDA already recalls products contaminated with antibiotic-resistant Salmonella but only after those products have made people sick, according to CSPI. The group's petition asked the agency to establish a testing regime for these pathogens in ground meat and poultry in the same way that it has for E. coli O157:H7. USDA declared that particularly dangerous strain of E. coli an adulterant in 1994.

"USDA should take action before people get sick, and require controls and testing for these pathogens before they reach consumers," said CSPI food safety director Caroline Smith DeWaal. "The research shows that antibiotic-resistant Salmonella in ground meat and poultry is a hazard and it is time to move to a more preventive system of controlling the risks at the plant and on the farm."

The four Salmonella strains covered by the petition, Salmonella Heidelberg, Salmonella Newport, Salmonella Hadar, and Salmonella Typhimurium, have all been linked to outbreaks.

In 2009, an outbreak of antibiotic-resistant Salmonella Newport linked to Cargill beef resulted in at least 40 illnesses in four states. This year, the USDA oversaw a recall of frozen turkey burgers contaminated with antibiotic-resistant Salmonella Hadar. That outbreak sickened at least 12. As foodborne illness is dramatically underreported, the true number of illnesses is likely to be much higher.

Antibiotic resistance is an inevitable consequence of antibiotic overuse, according to CSPI. Most antibiotics used on animal farms are not used to treat disease, but to promote growth or to prevent diseases caused by overcrowding, poor hygiene, and other problems.

CSPI has long urged the FDA to stop the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics. In fact, CSPI is a co-plaintiff in a lawsuit filed yesterday (May 25) by the Natural Resources Defense Council aimed at compelling the FDA to withdraw its approval for most non-therapeutic uses of two important antibiotics, penicillin and tetracyclines, in animal feed.

Improving conditions on factory farms, thereby reducing both the need for antibiotic use and the resulting resistance, is a primary tenet of Food Day, a new grassroots mobilisation CSPI is planning for October 24. Reducing overcrowding in hen houses and concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, could lead to more judicious use of antibiotics and would be beneficial for animal and human health, according to the group.