Staph infection alert: a quarter of meat products contaminated

Staph infection alert: a quarter of meat products contaminated

A staph infection scare has sparked in the United States after a study revealed that as much as a quarter of the meat products in groceries and supermarkets in five cities is tainted with drug-resistant bacteria.

"For the first time, we know how much of our meat and poultry is contaminated with antibiotic-resistant Staph, and it is substantial," said principal study author Lance Price of the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Phoenix, Arizona which conducted the staph infection research.

The study, released Friday in the medical journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, further showed that among the tainted meats, 47 percent of the samples were positive for staphyloccocus aureus. This bacteria is a particularly deadly and resistant microbe that may cause pneumonia, sepsis, skin infections and heart inflammation.

The U.S. meat industry blasted the findings of the study which it said was misleading people into thinking about a widespread staph infection even though only a small sample was analyzed.

"Despite the claims of this small study, consumers can feel confident that meat and poultry is safe," James Hodges, the president of the American Meat Institute, said in a statement.

The group also said a staph infection is unlikely under normal circumstances because cooking will kill the bacteria found in meat and poultry products.

The researchers said that the bacteria  was found deep inside the samples and may not have come from handling but from farms where animals are fed with low doses of antibiotics.

Bacteria growing inside meat then develop resistance to multiple antibiotics which can later lead to an outbreak of staph infection among humans.

Posted by enriquez on Friday April 15 2011, 11:39 PM EST. Ref: Inquirer. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, Shopping. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0