Just yesterday, the fifteenth of April, it was reported by the Translational Genomics Research Institute that US meat and poultry is widely contaminated with drug-resistant Staph bacteria. These drug resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus were found in grocery store nationwide. Coming in at almost half of the meat and poultry samples, 47% of samples were contaminated. Additionally, roughly 52% of the aforementioned bacteria were resistant to at least three classes of antibiotics. The researchers collected a total of 136 samples at 26 retailers, spanning more than 80 brands or pork, beef, chicken, and turkey. Further studies showed that the source animals themselves were the main source of the Staph bacteria. However high the percentages, the Staph bacteria are often killed off by the cooking process (but it is possible to be infected via improper handling of the raw meat or cross contamination). The researchers are most concerned with how antibiotics are used in the source animals. The increasing numbers of drug-resistant bacteria should be an alarm for the monitoring of antibiotics; both their dosing and composition. Antibiotics are the number one way we fight off Staph infections, if the bacteria become resistant to three or even more antibiotics then we have a serious problem that limits just how we can treat an infected individual. Some of the Staph bacteria are even multi-drug resistant. Such studies go to show that we need to more carefully distribute and monitor the use of antibiotics.For more information on this study visit this link and read the article:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110415083153.htm
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