Nearly half of meat in US stores contains bacteria

The risk of bacterial infection from meat can be reduced by cooking meat properly and washing the meat and the surface that comes in contact with it thoroughly.

The scientists incubated the samples put in broth at the temperature similar to that of the human body for 24 hours. Genetic testing was used to determine if the samples contained bacteria.

Afterwards, the samples found infected were treated with antibiotics like tetracycline, vancomycin oxacillin to see if they are resistant to these antibiotics.

Lead researcher, Lance Price, director, Center for Food Microbiology and Environmental Health at the Translation Genomics Research Institute, Phoenix, said they found that 47 percent of the samples contained Staphylococcus aureus bacteria.

What was more alarming was that 52 percent of the contaminated meat samples contained bacteria which were found resistant to three major kinds of antibiotics.

DNA testing revealed that animals were the source of this contamination, said the researchers. The reason behind the drug resistant bacteria could be found in the high amounts of antibiotics fed to the animals in farms.

“These findings really point to serious problems associated with the way food animals are raised in the US today,” said Price.

Mixed reaction to the study
Only last summer, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) urged the meat industry to reduce the use of antibiotics among growing concerns that the practice is making antibiotics less effective among humans and is breeding bacteria which is resistant to antibiotics.

Some other scientists thought it early to reach a conclusion that antibiotics fed to animals were to be blamed. Beilei Ge, a Louisiana University food scientist, said that staph bacteria are present in half of the humans’ throats or nose, and insanitary handling of meat could infect meat with the bacteria.

However, the risk of bacterial infection from meat can be reduced by cooking meat properly and washing the meat and the surface that comes in contact with it thoroughly.

A prominent food safety attorney, William Marler, said it will be helpful to test meat samples obtained from stores as the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture only tests samples at the meat production facilities.

About 11,000 people die from this infection, according to the data provided by the CDC.

The study was published in the journal ‘Clinical Infectious Disease.’