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    New Bills in Congress to Curb Food Born Antibiotic Resistant Salmonella

    By trkingmomoe on Fri, 05/15/2015 - 1:26am |

     

    LemonChicken2.jpg
    "LemonChicken2" by Auno3 at English Wikipedia - Own work. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

    Both the Senate and House today introduced bills after Frontline on PBS aired a documentary,The Trouble With Chicken, on deadly salmonella outbreaks caused by eating infected chicken.  If you have not seen it, you need to watch it because we all eat food. You can see it here. 

    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/trouble-with-chicken/

    In the Senate, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced the "Meat and Poultry Notification Recall Act."  This will give more authority to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to order recalls of meat and poultry that is contaminated. Right now their authority is weak and they need direct link to food that is still in the possession of the person who is ill from an unopened package. They can ask the producer to recall the meat but cannot order them to with out this link.  The Frontline story covers this and how a deadly outbreak can go on for months if the producer refuses to recall the contaminated product until they USDA finds a direct link.

    Senator Gillibrand has a press release on her web page explaining her action and bill. 

    http://www.gillibrand.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/new-investigation-finds-failing-american-food-safety-system-causing-millions-of-illness-gillibrand-introduces-new-legislation-to-final-establish-mandatory-recall-of-contaminated-meat-and-poultry- 

    In the House, Reps. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) reintroduced the "Pathogen Reduction and Testing Reform Act."  Rep. DeLauro  and Rep. Slaughter have both been in front of this problem for years. These videos are from 2009.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Rep. Louise Slaughter is the only microbiologist in congress and you can read their press release on this bill here. 

    https://louise.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/delauro-slaughter-introduce-legislation-strengthen-usda-s-power-protect 

    Since it died in committee last summer they are working hard to get it passed. This is the history and what this bill covers. 

    They first introduced the Pathogen Reduction and Testing Reform Act last June but the bill died without a hearing. They resurrected it on Wednesday following an investigation by The Oregonian/OregonLive of the USDA's flawed response to four salmonella outbreaks that state and federal officials tied to Foster Farms chicken over a decade. Frontline also covered the USDA's handling of the outbreaks in a documentary aired Tuesday.

    The bill would amend three federal statutes, the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Products Inspection Act and the Egg Products Inspection Act -- to force USDA action against harmful strains of salmonella and campylobacter. Both are common in poultry, the deadliest food that Americans eat. The bill would trigger a recall of meat, poultry and processed eggs contaminated with strains resistant to at least two antibiotics used to treat human infections. It would also force a recall in an outbreak involving serious illness or death.

    "The USDA has failed to recall meat contaminated with antibiotic-resistant pathogens because they do not believe they have the legal authority to do so," DeLauro and Slaughter said in a statement. "This bill would ensure there is no confusion.

    http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2015/05/us_bill_would_ban_antibiotic-r.html

    This has become a major problem in this country's market place.  Consumers are expected to be taking precautions when handling and cooking these products that may contain food born contamination.  The contamination should not be in the market place to begin with in our modern society. Even with careful handling and cooking, consumers can still get sick and many do. This report takes in other food products but the numbers are still very high. 

    Overall in 2014, FoodNet logged just over 19,000 infections, about 4,400 hospitalizations, and 71 deaths from the nine foodborne germs it tracks. Salmonella and Campylobacter were by far the most common- accounting for about 14,000 of the 19,000 infections reported.

    The real number of infections is likely much larger, however, because many people with foodborne infections are never tested. Griffin estimates that for every person with a lab-confirmed case of Salmonella, for example, there are about 29 other people who also had the infection but were not tested. 

     https://www.yahoo.com/health/were-not-getting-much-better-at-curbing-foodborne-118960760817.html

    Our outdated regulations are 100 years old and we must bring our food inspection and testing into the 21st century and use modern technology and science. We know so much more about these infections and now there is a growing concern over the antibiotic resistance.

    One explanation can be found in the way inspectors with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) oversee poultry.

    When it comes to salmonella, the FSIS tests fewer than one bird per day in plants that can process up to hundreds of thousands of birds per day. And even when they do test, inspectors aren’t measuring the amount of the bacteria or the type found. Some poultry products aren’t tested at all. (snip)

    Other times, inspectors did find salmonella ahead of an outbreak, but the amount they found was allowed under existing federal standards. So even though a company’s product was making people sick, they weren’t in violation of the FSIS limits.

     http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/health-science-technology/trouble-with-chicken/five-salmonella-outbreaks-food-inspectors-didnt-see-comin

    The Oregonian has a detailed report on the Foster poultry operation by Lynne Terry that Frontline did not go into.  It is well worth the read. 

    http://www.oregonlive.com/usda-salmonella/

    How the poultry is processed.

     

     

     

    It is now your turn to comment on this.

    Do you think there should be prosecution and jail time for stubborn CEO's that don't cooperate? 

    Are you going to be more cautious on how you handle and cook poultry? 

    Do you want to see regulations and inspections of factory farms?

     

    Comments

    Hi Momoe.

    You already know that I attempting to get back.

    When I handle any meat, I wash my hands in the antiseptic kitchen sink.

    I cook the meat in an oven around 325 F and I cook it for an hour or more. I read your recipes actually.

    Otherwise I fry some of the meat and of course use a crock pot from time to time.

    I need no thermometer because I jot down times on my daily log sheet.

    Actually it is usually some frozen pizza that will attack my innerts the next day. hahahaha

    We have over 300 million people in this country and they must be fed properly.

    That is no easy task.

    But we need a government or governments (local, state and federal) to make an attempt to keep us free from viral and bacterial hazaards.

    But we live at a time when corporate interests bribe those governmental units that are supposed to protect the public.

    In the end

    WE ARE ON OUR OWN. 


    by Richard Day on Fri, 05/15/2015 - 12:08pm

    I use a meat thermometer when I am cooking roasts or large pieces of meats.  It takes the guess work out of it.  Smaller cuts you just need to time them and keep a eye on them.  Though I do use a meat thermometer on chicken and make sure the internal temperature is 180 degrees.  

    I buy a bottle of antiseptic dish soap that I use when handling chicken to clean up with. I also have a cutting mat that is used only for chicken. I have it hanging on the kitchen wall so others don't use it for cutting other things up. My mother never had to take all these precautions when handling chicken.  She just washed up everything.  My brother still likes to tell the story about chasing chickens with their heads cut off around the back yard.  

    It is so easy to contaminate your cooking area even with all these steps.  If the meat has drug resistive contamination then it should not be in the market place.  


    by trkingmomoe on Fri, 05/15/2015 - 4:39pm

    There is certainly room for improvement in food safety but i think it is a bit of an exaggeration to say we have a 'major problem' in our marketplace. The change in the recall powers of the USDA is a good move and may reduce some illness.

    Almost a Billion meals are served each and every day in the US, over three hundred Billion each year yet only 19,000 reported cases of serious illness due to food born pathogens are reported annually.

    The idea that this "contamination' should not be in the marketplace is specious because it doesn't come from outside the marketplace but is a natural component of the poultry and other animals  we consume. It is and can be reduced and controlled but never eliminated completely unless people want more nuclear sterilization of their food to protect an exceptionally small fraction of a percent of the population from a exceedingly rare and usually temporary ailment.

    I'm no fan of the mega-agriculture system we have but the fact that it only killed 71 people  last year is truly amazing but it's not perfect and never will be

    There is no reason for anyone to suffer long and certainly not die from food born illness. There is a simple easily obtained antidote for this problem, activated charcoal capsules, the universal antidote for most poisons. .Thirty minutes after taking them the symptoms are usually gone  never to return and no antibiotics are needed no matter the resistance of the pathogen.


    by Peter (not verified) on Fri, 05/15/2015 - 3:20pm

    They are not out to remove all pathogens from the system just the dangerous ones that are now cropping up. The big concern is Salmonella Heidelberg that is drug resistive.  It is not the same strains of salmonella that was present years ago.  Those strains are still there but because of the over use of non therapeutic antibiotics in the raising of livestock we now have super pathogens entering into the system. We also need to increase our resources to oversee the food industry. This is an important roll our government must do. 


    by trkingmomoe on Fri, 05/15/2015 - 4:18pm

    All pathogens are dangerous in varying degrees and antibiotic resistant strains certainly are especially those created in hospitals. These critters cannot be removed from our environment only reduced and controlled by best practices at the plant, restaurant and home.

    The last time i checked the AMA recommends no treatment for food poisoning other than fluids and time although some older and very young people become dehydrated and require hospital treatment where they receive fluids, antibiotics and activated charcoal treatments.

    The present problems of antibiotic resistance pathogens is probably irreversible and the the best we can hope for is that we stop producing new ones. Does this bill address the causes of these mutations and how to eliminate them?

    Recommendations for better inspections, procedures and recall powers are useful but have nothing to do with stopping the causes of these mutations.


    by Peter (not verified) on Fri, 05/15/2015 - 8:43pm

    I just want to make a note that it is the women in congress that is leading the charge on this. 


    by trkingmomoe on Sat, 05/16/2015 - 4:56pm