Worse than anthrax (supermarket meat)

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The Portland Press Herald ran an Associated Press article today saying that a study was recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine concerning antibiotics in livestock. According to the article, University of Maryland and the FDA collected 200 samples of ground beef, ground chicken ground turkey and ground pork from 3 supermarkets around D.C. and tested the samples for bacteria. They found that 20% were contaminated with salmonella. Of the strains isolated, 84% were resistant to at least one antibiotic adn 53% were restistant to 3 or more antibiotics. The study attributed the resistance to the use of antibiotics as a preventative, which in turn causes the bacteria to mutate into antibiotic-resistant forms. At this rate, all Osama Bin Laden needs to do is wait...

-- Sheryl in Me (radams@sacoriver.net), October 18, 2001

Answers

Response to Worse than anthrax

Sheryl, the first thing I thought of when I heard about treating all suspected cases of anthrax with penicillin, was resistance buildup. They are recommending that every cold be treated with antibiotics, just in case it may be anthrax! My goodness, and it's cold season! If that isnt a prescription for getting on a fast track toward super bugs, what is?

But then, I can think of no alternative.

The book of Revelation seems to be coming to fulfillment before my eyes. Even so, Lord Jesus, come!

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), October 18, 2001.


Response to Worse than anthrax

Isn't that a fact! We have been on a downward spiral with antibiotics for a little while now. The meat gets treated as a preventitive, which we injest unknowingly, then for some reason no one can fiqure out why antibiotics don't work for that simple strep throat. Many other scenarios. Tana

-- Tana Cothran (tana@getgoin.net), October 18, 2001.

Response to Worse than anthrax

Doesn't it make you all glad that you raise your own meat :-)!!? All our meat chickens, turkeys and pigs never get medicated feed. Wonder if the folks in charge will ever "learn"?

-- Marcia (HrMr@webtv.net), October 18, 2001.

Response to Worse than anthrax

Locally the health authorities are remommending that this year EVERYONE get a flu shot! Why? So that if you get flu symtoms, your doctor will be reasonably certain you don't have anthrax! Madness....

I bet the pharmaceutical companies are celebrating big time right now...they've been handed a silver platter and free reign to wage a war of terror on our own citizenry, and make a bundle in the process. Makes ya wonder, all you conspiracy theorists out there, (makes me wonder too :)), about who could be behind the anthrax, etc freak- out.......

-- Earthmama (earthmama@yahoo.com), October 18, 2001.


Response to Worse than anthrax

If you ask me, the NEWS MEDIA is worse than anthrax. They have blown this whole thing up WAY out of proportion.

-- Rose (open_rose@hotmail.com), October 18, 2001.


Response to Worse than anthrax

I thought that thorough cooking destroyed the salmonella, along with washing your hands well after handling potential sources such as raw meat, eggs, frogs, turtles, and so on.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), October 18, 2001.

Response to Worse than anthrax

Rebekah, you are right, but studies have shown that animals that have been treated with antibiotics and have developed resistant bacteria, transmit those resistant bacteria to the people who work with them. As long as the meat is thoroughly cooked and people are careful about hygeine, the meat isn't going to infect anyone, but the animals who are carrying the resistant bugs just might.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), October 18, 2001.

Response to Worse than anthrax

I don't understand why so many people have such a great, repeated need for antibiotics. In my family, ages 36, 26, 6, and 3, there have only EVER been two prescriptions for antibiotics. One for the 6 yr old with a nasty, infected cat scratch hiding behind the ear (didn't find until too late), and the other for my Giardia infection. I can't believe that some doctors in the US are handing out Cipro to anyone who asks for it. We couldn't get it in Canada without having some infection at the time. A few more years and antibiotics won't be worth a plug nickel. As for meat containing antibiotics, wouldn't the effect in a human be nil if the meat was completely and properly cooked?

-- Rheba (rhebabeall@hotmail.com), October 18, 2001.

Response to Worse than anthrax

Here is the article which was likely cited:

Study Finds Tainted, Drug-Resistant Meats Common

By Gene Emery Reuters

BOSTON (Oct. 18) - Harmful bacteria in meat and poultry are becoming more resistant to antibiotics due to the long-controversial practice of feeding the drugs to cattle and other food animals, according to research published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

The practice of giving healthy livestock antibiotics to promote growth and profits makes salmonella and similar organisms that sometimes can cause severe diseases immune to the drugs and should be scrapped, according to an accompanying editorial.

The new research, along with previous studies "represent the proverbial smoking gun" that demonstrates why it is time to stop feeding antibiotics to livestock, said Dr. Sherwood Gorbach in the editorial.

Gorbach, of the Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, said antibiotics should only be given to individual animals that have been examined by a veterinarian, and even those animals should not be allowed to receive antibiotics that are important for curing human disease.

In addition, he said, the practice of giving antibiotics to animals to promote growth should be banned.

Researchers have been trying to raise the alarm for years about the widespread practice of feeding antibiotics to food animals.

The Union of Concerned Scientists, a science-based advocacy group opposed to the use of antibiotics in livestock, estimated earlier this year that while 3 million pounds of antibiotics are given to humans each year, 26.6 million pounds are given to animals.

About 24.6 million pounds of that goes to animals that are not sick.

Doctors may play a role in breeding antibiotic resistance because they overuse the drugs in humans, but the widespread use of antibiotics in animals contributes to the problem, Gorbach said.

Proponents of animal antibiotic use contend the drugs make food production more efficient and profitable, Gorbach said.

However, he said, "there are alternatives, as shown in Europe after the use of these drugs was abandoned. The economic losses could be minimized and even neutralized by improvements in animal husbandry, the quality of feed, and hygiene."

Nearly 1.4 million cases of salmonella poisoning occur in the United States each year from eating contaminated beef, pork, poultry, eggs and milk. The risk is highest among the elderly and people whose immune systems are not working properly.

In the latest study investigators from the Food and Drug Administration found that 20 percent of the 200 samples of ground chicken, beef, turkey, and pork purchased at three Washington D.C.- area supermarkets contained salmonella, which causes food poisoning.

In addition, 84 percent of those salmonella bacteria were resistant to at least one type of antibiotic; 53 percent were resistant to three.

Another study in the Journal tested chicken products in four states and found 17 percent harbored drug-resistant bacteria.

01:47 10-18-01

-- Ken S. in WC TN (Scharabo@aol.com), October 18, 2001.


All the more reason for us to try to raise as much of our meat as possible ourselves. If that's not possible we should support small local farmers who raise their animals naturally without medications.

-- Murray in ME (lkdmfarm@megalink.net), October 18, 2001.


rheba, the problem isnt so much in eating those animals that have been overdosed with antibiotics. If they have been sufficiently cooked, and the cook observes decent cleanliness, the stuff on the meat is all dead. The problem is that the very practice in our society of feeding large amounts of antibiotics to animals simply to make them put on weight, is causing resistant bacteria to develop in the agribusiness factories. Those "superbugs" are then released to our entire society through various means. You just cant keep them isolated inside those "farms." So you can now come down with an infection of a super bacteria which developed on a feedlot out in Texas, which got onto the boots of the employee, which was carried home and deposited on the towel of his bathroom, which was transfered to his brother's hands, who went to box up the wrapped meat at a local packaging company, to your store halfway across the US, to the meat counter, where it is on the outside of the meat packages, because one of the packages is leaking slightly. A former store customer picks up one package after another, trying to decide which one to buy, and happens to put the germs over on the cheese packages, which you open and dont wash your hands, because cheese is supposed to be safe. (After all, they pasteurise THAT.) Get the idea?

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), October 18, 2001.

Also, rheba, our society in general has weakened immune systems, from eating so much junk. Also, some people are genetically programmed to be more hardy than others, which have inherited propensities toward immunological weakness. Thank God for your evident good genes.

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), October 18, 2001.

We're leaning more and more towards raising all our own meat. I presently raise chickens for eggs and some for meat. Next Spring we are going to try our hand at Turkeys, probably no more than 8 to start. I might even consider doing rabbits and if I breed the goats I would consider eating the male kids. We rarely eat beef or pork so I really wouldn't miss it.

My mom thinks I'm cruel to kill our chickens. I pointed out that at least mine get to lead a chicken life before they get eaten unlike pole barn raised chickens. Mine get to run around the yard for 4 or 5 hours a day, scratch around etc.... I also know what mine have been fed.

As for the discussion of antibiotics - we rarely take any kind of medication. We'd have to be really sick first. In the last 5 years only my oldest son had antibiotics for an ear infection and that was more precautionary as we were about to leave on vacation otherwise I would probably have had him do without or waited to see how he does.

Also, I was reading up the other day about turkeys and how pole barn raised turkeys are routinely fed seditives to keep them calm in an over crowded male dominanted housing. No wonder we feel sleepy after eating that turkey at thanksgiving (okay just kidding about that last part - maybe!)

-- Anita in NC (anitaholton@mindspring.com), October 18, 2001.


I'm curious as to who is the authority that says to treat anthrax with penicillin -- ? I sure wouldn't take 'their'word for anything. Who is 'they'--? Is this just some more urban rumors being hashed over? The effective treatments are ciprofloxacin and dioxycycline for anthrax.

-- julie f. (rumplefrogskin@excite.com), October 18, 2001.

Julie, I actually also read in that lovely rag, the Portland Press Herald, that doctors are now saying that Cipro isn't the only antibiotic that treats anthrax well, and that pennicillin does also. There are many strains of bacteria that are now resistant to pennicillin due to overuse. The two antibiotics you named are newer antibiotics, so there aren't as many bacteria that are resistant to them...yet. When doctors are out there prescribing antibiotics for viral ear infections in case of a secondary infection, we create our own problems of resistant bacteria without ever involving over- medicated livestock. My doctor thinks I'm nuts because I'm so anti- medication. He may be right, or not.

-- Sheryl in Me (radams@sacoriver.net), October 18, 2001.


I am pretty anti medicine too. About the only thing I ever take is Excedrin (teenager in the house) I agree that raising our own meat and avoiding anti biotics so that they work when we really need them is a big step we all need to take if we can. I raise as much of what we eat as I can. What beef and pork we eat I buy from a friend who raises it on his farm and is butchered by a local custom butcher that I trust. We eat alot of game meat and home raised chicken. And my son fishes enough to keep us in trout and bass. I do buy the occasional pkg of store meat..but always hate it. Its all pretty scary.

-- Jenny (Auntjenny6@aol.com), October 18, 2001.

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