Study: Over Half of All Supermarket Meat Tainted With Staph Bacteria
- Posted on April 15, 2011 at 11:35pm by
Emily Esfahani Smith
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ATLANTA (AP) — Half the meat and poultry sold in the supermarket may be tainted with the staph germ, a new report suggests.
The new estimate is based on just 136 samples of beef, chicken, pork and turkey purchased from grocery stores in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Flagstaff, Ariz. and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Proper cooking kills the germs, and federal health officials estimate staph accounts for less than 3 percent of foodborne illnesses, far less than more common bugs like salmonella and E. coli.
The new study found more than half the samples contained Staphylococcus aureus, a bacteria that can make people sick. Worse, half of those contaminated samples had a form of staph that’s resistant to at least three kinds of antibiotics.
“This study shows that much of our meat and poultry is contaminated with multidrug-resistant staph,” Paul Keim, one of the study’s authors, said in a statement. “Now we need to determine what this means in terms of risk to the consumer.”
Keim and his co-authors work at the nonprofit Translational Genomics Research Institute in Arizona. Their study is to be published in the journal Clinical infectious Diseases, an institute spokesman said.
Staph germs are commonly found on the skin and in the noses of up to 25 percent of healthy people. The bacteria can be spread in many settings, including in the packing plant or in the kitchen, and it can cause food poisoning.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that staph accounts for roughly 240,000 cases a year. Handwashing and proper cooking are the best ways to avoid problems.
The study’s authors note that livestock and poultry are steadily fed low doses of antibiotics at industrial farms. They suggest that may be a contributor to the antibiotic resistance seen in some meat samples.
Among the types of drug-resistant germs the researchers found, one was methicillin-resistant staph, or MRSA, a superbug that can be fatal. They found MRSA in three of the 136 samples.
Food and Drug Administration officials say meat does not seem to be a significant route for MRSA transmission, but health officials continue to study the issue.
The government doesn’t routinely check retail meat and poultry for staph bacteria. However, a fairly recent FDA pilot study in the Washington area looked at more than 1,100 meat and poultry samples and found staph in 280 of them.
A Louisiana State University study of 120 meat samples found it in almost half of pork chops and 20 percent of beef steak samples. That study, published in 2009, calculated the superbug MRSA was in about 5 percent of pork samples and 3 percent of beef.
In a statement Friday, the American Meat Institute said the study is misleading.
“Despite the claims of this small study, consumers can feel confident that meat and poultry is safe,” said James H. Hodges, the organization’s president.
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Comments (121)
thepatriotdave
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 1:27amDocStrangelove
Posted on April 15, 2011 at 11:39pm
Yet the GOP wants to GUT the USDA even more than Bush did. Amazing.
—————————————————-
Not amazing, smart! How hard can it be to make sure consumers know that proper cleaning and proper cooking takes care of the vast majority of these problems?!
I eat meat with every meal I eat. That’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner, that I have some sort of meat, and I have done so since a child. I have had some health issues in my life but nothing that would be contributed to my eating habits. And, I have never been more than 10-12 lbs overwheight.
The secret… as a kid and even now as a senior adult, I play in the dirt. Getting dirty is good for you. However, the positives are being lost on a generation that stays indoors watching TV, playing video games, or just crusing the internet. Getting dirty on a regular basis helps the human body to build up immunities. When you spend your entire life in an almost sterile environment your body has a much harder time fighting off infections and bacteria.
So get dirty, then get clean, then eat a good meal of meat that has been properly cooked, and you should live a long life. Now, does anyone need the USDA to tell you what I just did???
Calling all Patriots
Report Post »Join us in drafting Col. Allen West to run for POTUS…
http://www.americasteapartynews.com/allen-west-files.php
drewst
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 1:25amThere is a whole lot of decent, good-tasting, and healthy food that does not involve body parts of animals. Around the world the horrific factory farms seem to be heading towards causing a very deadly plague from some superbug. And the result of that would be terrible, including the economic hit dealing with it, the loss of workers who are sick, and just the concern, itself. This world is not incapable of suffering a plague. There really are a whole lot of good food choices that people can eat and that our society can focus on that do not involve corpses. In addition, the moral atrocities of the factory farms are abysmal. The victims are feeling individuals, not objects. A decent person considers what they are doing to others and does not commit these atrocities. But the industries torture and maim them, even boil them alive by the millions each year, and force them to live torturously until they brutally murder them. That is not doing to others as to yourself. These industries are merciless and evil. The USA is committing a holocaust. But horrific plagues are foretold of in the Bible.
Report Post »GBMBulletsSKNRD
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 1:19amDocStrangelove
P.S. JIM BEAM Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey is that organic enough for ya?
Report Post »GBMBulletsSKNRD
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 1:15amDocStrangelove
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 12:53am
GBMBULLETSSKNRD….
Our food is NOT the safest anymore… the GOP decided to let the “free market” handle it…. like the results?
BUY ORGANIC
Going on 60+ years on US Grade A beef.
LOL buy organic, your joking right?
Report Post »riseandshine
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 1:12amI read that Obama just appointed a Monsanto man to be FDA Food Safety Czar….we can all feel safer now…..not
Report Post »Gold Coin & Economic News
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 12:54am“Despite the claims of this small study, consumers can feel confident that meat and poultry is safe,”
That is until the next million pound hamburger recall…
Report Post »miles from nowhere
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 12:41amPersonally I process my own meat, so I do not worry about what people are buying in the store.
Report Post »WAR PIGS CRAWLING
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 12:38amJust think…..lucky it’s just bacteria…..could be from the thousands of TB and Hepatitis infected illegal immigrants working in the packing plants….”No Sir….I Want Mine Extra Rare”
Report Post »psst
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 7:54am@Strange
Report Post »Takes one to know one.
randy
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 8:08am@DOCSTRANGELOVE you’re a Moron!
Report Post »GBMBulletsSKNRD
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 12:37amOur food is the safest on the planet. Keep your hands off my beef.
Report Post »jzs
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 12:37amJoseph Fawcett, I hate to be the one to tell you, but you posted on the wrong forum. No one here wants to hear about about how their chicken nuggets come from chickens raised in a confined space with their beaks pulled out at birth so they can’t hurt other chickens. No one wants to hear how cows are raised immobile, in their own excrement, and pumped with antibiotics, to raise the fat content in their muscle tissue to make juicy steaks.
Joseph Fawcett, no one cares. Go away.
Report Post »GeorgieJo
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 12:37amCZAR of BEEF coming soon to your town….
Report Post »banjarmon
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 12:41amWe already have a czar of bull…he is the potus!!!
Report Post »CatherineAnn
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 12:36amFunny that this story pops up now with cuts suggested? Also I think the Republicans want to cut all the new funding for the Food and Drug administration and leave it the way it was just a few months ago. Food was safe then so why do we need all the extra funding. If you are worried about bacteria in meat that is antibiotic resistant, then the answer is not more inspection and control. The problem is the antibiotics that are fed to the animals. I know this because I raise beef, chicken and pork for my own table.
Report Post »RepubliCorp
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 10:44amHang out in the country awhile .most farmers don’t use antibiotic unless there is some need
Report Post »banjarmon
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 12:35am@ docstrangeheat
Eat tainted meat. enjoy your belly aching…
Report Post »Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 12:26amAnother reason we hunt. One full grown elk fills our freezer, add a deer and an antelope (yes they were playing when we shot them). More than a years supply of meat. Buy chicken and fish to supplement, good eatin for a family.
Report Post »BonnieBlueFlag
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 12:22amLast year I started buying almost all my meat from my local small town meat market (where they process deer, hogs, cattle, etc.) I had always bought fajitas from there but I started buying their ground beef, chicken breasts and other types of meat. What a difference!
When I used to buy ground beef from the supermarket in the city, the smell of it browning was sickening. I would add tons of spices to cover the sickly fecal smell- I thought that’s just how browning beef smelled. Now that I buy from the local meat market I know the difference- browning ground beef should smell delicious without even one spice.
Try a local meat market. Worlds different.
Report Post »mill
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 4:00amgood advice. we get an elk and deer every year also. clean our own, pkg and enjoy..
Report Post »TheLascone
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 12:18amWhat is behind this ???
Report Post »http://www.flickr.com/photos/23630227@N06/5296855395/in/photostream/
Creestof
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 12:08amMaybe we should just burn it for fuel.
Report Post »Showtime
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 12:01amThe only time I thought I had food poisoning from having eaten a hamburger was when it turned out not to be food poisoning. Sure am glad it was not food poisoning, because the episode gave me a wonderful son nine months later!
Report Post »BetterDays
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 12:20am@Showtime
I knew it, they are putting additives in our meats! You could sue!!!!!!
Or just cherish your son which knowing you I’m sure you do.
Talk to ya tomorrow show, K.I.S.S.
Report Post »bccrane
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 11:32amI’ve had food poisoning (major) on 3 different occasions other (minor) times people would just figure it was a bout of flu. My first major poisoning was from beef, well not quite the way you would think, we raised beef and with working with animals you will have animals die for one reason or another, we had one die during some nasty weather and had to wait to bury it a few days and then it warmed up I went out with a loader but the animal wouldn‘t roll into the bucket so I manually pushed it into the bucket my gloves had holes in them and I didn’t wash may hands well enough when I went to eat lunch. At my wedding the caterer had made chicken both fried and baked and the baked chicken which I had but not my new bride was under cooked and the honeymoon was one to remember. A few years later we went out to eat at a local resturant, I ordered the chef salad and came across some ham that was extra chewy I pointed it out to the waitress she looked at it and said it must have been some grissle the next morning I was sick and realized that when they were preparing the ham a washcloth was already in the grinder or got caught in the grinder. But yet I am still here. None of my food poisoning was a direct cause from the meat as much as it was poor preparation, either my lack of washing, under cooking chicken, or foreign material getting in with the meat.
Report Post »Cigar
Posted on April 15, 2011 at 11:55pmWe need to add one more Trillion… Yeap that is the ticket…
Please ???
Report Post »sadmanwhossane
Posted on April 15, 2011 at 11:54pmwhere ya at? im yoder here, but keim to busy right now.
Report Post »Diane TX
Posted on April 15, 2011 at 11:52pmMerely cooking raw meat and poultry to the proper temperatures kills staph bacteria – so what’s the problem?
Report Post »riseandshine
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 12:03ami’m not worried about it. i worry more about big government stepping in to solve things. the free market will take care of it, if allowed to, theres no doubt…but watch our trusted leaders crack down and sueeze out more small businesses
Report Post »riseandshine
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 1:45amwrong…we haven’t had a truly free market for many decades…it’s been big government doing the bidding of big business…both republicans and democrats
Report Post »NSDQ
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 10:13amAgain the not so amazing mind of the liberal shows itself, did you even read the study in your link? Well here is the last line since you missed it:
” For hams pumped with brine to attain (i) 18% (wt/wt) weight gain, (ii) > or = 2.3% sodium lactate, (iii) > or = 0.8% sodium chloride, and (iv) 200 ppm ingoing sodium nitrite, slow-cooking critical limits of < or = 4 h between 10 and 34 degrees C, < or = 5 h between 34 and 46 degrees C, and < or = 5 h between 46 and 54.4 degrees C could be considered ADEQUATE TO ENSURE SAFETY."
Report Post »earthrise
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 12:01pmNSDQ….
LMAO and touche. i caught that also. Please be just a little nicer to our poor liberal bretheren. It really isn’t their fault that they have a gene gone awry and refuse to take their meds. Who would we pray for if not for them….. chuckle.
Report Post »Itchee Dryback
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 12:38pmDocStrangelove
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 12:01am
Incorrect.
Report Post »___________________________________________________________
“For hams pumped with brine to attain (i) 18% (wt/wt) weight gain, (ii) > or = 2.3% sodium lactate, (iii) > or = 0.8% sodium chloride, and (iv) 200 ppm ingoing sodium nitrite, slow-cooking critical limits of < or = 4 h between 10 and 34 degrees C, < or = 5 h between 34 and 46 degrees C, and < or = 5 h between 46 and 54.4 degrees C could be considered adequate to ensure safety."
___________________________________________________
You're full of it Dr.
You're claiming apples are oranges.
Try again.
Ghostrider
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 3:43pmDianeTx, the problem is that our food supply is being contaminated. Vegetables are being tainted, now it’s the meat. You can cook the meat till it’s all dried up, but you still eat salad, still eat raw veggies. If we cannot trust our food supply, we’re in trouble. If you live in teh country, raise and eat your own. If you live in the city, pray.
Report Post »joseph Fawcett
Posted on April 15, 2011 at 11:50pmI work in a meat dept and do some cutting of meat for sale in the super market I work in. I was a CNA (Certified Nurses Assistant) So I watch how things are done because of this kind of stuff. If we have these on our meat it comes from the processing plant. If you have ever seen a beef farm you will understand how and why beef is this way. I hate driving by one of these feed lots because it is all about getting the cows big enough to slaughter and that is all. There are thousands of head and they do nothing but eat and sleep. It is a shame. I am not surprised at this news. I wish we could do more to breed and care for all the food more as God intended than what is just expeedent.
http://www.josephfawcettart.com western artist
Report Post »riseandshine
Posted on April 15, 2011 at 11:50pmhaving meat wrapped in cellophane doesn’t help…fresh cut meat wrapped in paper is better…the way they used to do it..my two cents
Report Post »NutterButter79
Posted on April 15, 2011 at 11:48pmI read a report about our over use of antibiotics and antibacterial products. We need to get drug companies out of our health care. I worked as a pharmacy tech and I used to have tell people that their prescriptions weren’t covered because their insurance companies favored a brand new drug. These drug companies push their stuff onto doctors by handing out perks. I guess some doctors are to blame as well, since some are just too lazy and will write a script for anything.
Report Post »I hope this doesn’t get too bad.
Showtime
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 12:03amOh, Nutter Butters are good!
Report Post »walkwithme1966
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 6:25pmWow Nutterbutter – someone on this site that actually tells the truth – how refreshing.
Report Post »http://maboulette.wordpress.com
Itchee Dryback
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 7:04pmNutterButter79
Posted on April 15, 2011 at 11:48pm
I worked as a pharmacy tech and I used to have tell people that their prescriptions weren’t covered because their insurance companies favored a brand new drug.
____________________________________________
Not sure what you mean. Could you give a couple examples?
Report Post »What is bad about favoring new drugs? Are the old ones better somehow?
RealityCheck
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 11:34pm@ Itchee
Let me give you an example,
Report Post »I suffer from migraine headaches and had a prescription to an inexpensive medication that worked and had been on the market for 40+ years. Recently the FDA removed the drug from pharmacies with no reason other than to push new drugs which are more expensive, and brand new so no one really knows if these new drugs they cough up will have any serious long term side effects. You see a med that people have been taking safely for decades has far more documented side effects than a drug no one has taken other than lab mice.
Rearden Steel
Posted on April 15, 2011 at 11:42pmCook the meat and you’ll be fine.
Report Post »Magen_daveed7
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 6:41amMaybe the people at the USDA should be put in jail for allowing this to happen since they are already getting paid to do it or give the money back.
Report Post »mrsmileyface
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 2:41pmI blame Bush.
Psychic_Warrior
Posted on April 16, 2011 at 6:22pmI work as a meat packer and got some of the product in my eye at work. The result is a eye infection that I am still not 100% over more than two months later. The problem is this infection is very stubborn and resisted at least four treatments that where used to fight it.
Cooking the meat well will prevent direct illnesses from the meat, but the bacteria would give the drug resistant genes to other bacteria and you have the problem of cross contamination.
So cook your meat well and throughly clean anything that it touches, and anything that touches meat contaminated surfaces as well, before using either for anything else.
Report Post »thepatriotdave
Posted on April 17, 2011 at 2:07amOH OH, The Blaze is back to its old tricks again. Once again the new hire from the huffpo to run the Blaze has backfired on Glenn. I had a few comments on this thread last night because I had a running conversation going. No foul language, no racist crap, no anti-liberal stuff… so why were my comments deleted?????
Plus, I know its happening to others because some of their comments to me were also scrubbed.
Please for the sake of freedom of speech, re-think the new hire from huffpo. They obviously have an agenda, and I’m suspicious.
Report Post »thepatriotdave
Posted on April 17, 2011 at 2:08amAlmost forgot… I also stayed on subject!!!
Report Post »Liberalismsamentaldisorder
Posted on April 17, 2011 at 9:47amThe USDA IS the problem. They slap an OK on it and people think it’s safe. What on earth does the government do correctly and efficiently? Nothing. The free market should and can solve this. Right now if a company’s product makes people sick, they can point to their “passed” government inspection and they’re OK. What should happen is these companies produce a safe product or the free market will put them out of business.
Report Post »weeblewacker1
Posted on April 17, 2011 at 1:38pmbetter get used to bad food,unsafe products, remember so.cal in the 70′s? when you could not see anything because of the smog? get used to that again and not just for so.cal.ether! say good by to hunting too! they will want to de-regulate that too! good-bye deer,good-bye wild turkey! oh,you say you like to fish? well so long to that too!!! want your kids to go nowhere? no chance to get in a good collage.say good-bye to your retirement!! ect,ect.that is what the right wants!
Report Post »followthefounders
Posted on April 17, 2011 at 4:57pmCall me crazy, but things will probably get worse before they get better… I”m building up a safe food reserve from http://www.SmartChoice.myefoods.com Glenn says, “be part of the solution and not part of the problem”. so… be in a position to feed your neighbors when the time comes.
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