Staph Bacteria Found in Half of Grocery Store Meat

A new report estimates that half the meat and poultry sold in the supermarket may be tainted with the staph germ.

A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases recently found a startling amount of staphylococcus bacteria in grocery store meat. The study included 136 samples from 80 different brands of turkey, pork, chicken and beef from five cities across the country.

Researchers discovered that 47 percent of all samples contained the staph aureus bacteria, which can make people sick if exposed to it. They also found that of all the samples with staph contamination 96 percent were resistant to one common antibiotic and 52 percent were resistant to three or more antibiotics.

Scientists believe the harmful bacteria in the meat is appearing because animals are being exposed to antibiotic-resistant staph on farms. The bacteria does not appear to be from poor food-handling procedures during manufacturing.

But this study does raise concerns about the use of antibiotics in agriculture. Routinely food farmers give their animals antibiotics to fuel growth rather than to fight disease. Now, it appears decades of feeding drugs to animals is creating a microbial chain reaction that will lead to longer, more intensive human illness when these superbugs become drug-resistant.

Currently, the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System is monitoring four pesky bacteria. NARMS is a collaboration of the Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The group is watching Enterococcus, Salmonella, Campylobacter and E. coli. It doesn’t currently track staph bacteria or any of its anti-biotic cousins like MRSA.

“Salmonella and Campylobacter, the most common sources of food borne illnesses in the United States, account for well over a million resistant infections in this country each year.” — Margaret Mellon, Union of Concerned Scientists, from her Congressional Testimony, July 2009(PDF).

Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has been ravaging patients in hospitals and become a community health problem. Now that this familiar superbug has been found on meat, research needs to be conducted to see if this is part of the reason for the rise of MRSA.

Since heat kills bacteria, cooking meat and cleaning cutting boards, knives or anything (including hands) that comes into contact with raw meat with hot, soapy water should help prevent the spread of staph. Public health officials are watching these tough bacteria closely.

The World Health Organization, Union of Concerned Scientists and American Medical Association have called for significant restrictions in the use of antibiotics in animals for non-therapeutic purposes. The FDA has even drafted guidelines(PDF) advising food farmers to stop giving animals antibiotics that are used as human medicines but until they become regulations they are just suggestions.

In the meantime, drug-resistant bacteria are moving into our food supply.

“Antibiotic-resistant microorganisms generated in the guts of pigs in the Iowa countryside don’t stay on the farm. They can be transmitted to humans in at least three ways: carried on meat or poultry; colonizing farm workers who transmit them into the community; or moving through water and soil, which can lead to the contamination of fresh produce.” –Margaret Mellon, Director of the Food and Environment Program, Union of Concerned Scientists

Veterinarians say that when antibiotics used in raising food animals such as pigs, cows and chickens are the same as those used in doctors’ offices, those bacteria become impervious to those classes of human drugs.