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A federal government report on antibiotic resistance reveals that superbugs in meat is a much more common and widespread problem than anyone would like to admit. New strains of hearty, antibiotic resistant salmonella,
E. coli and
campylobacter bacteria appear to be showing up in alarmingly high percentages of the chicken, turkey, pork and beef we buy at the supermarket.
These findings come from a little-noticed
report the FDA released back in December. The report, which was dumped onto the FDA's web site without so much as a mention or a press release, compiles data from 5,236 samples of chicken breasts, ground turkey, ground beef and pork chops that were taken in 2008. It's unclear why the FDA either waited or took so long to release the info.
On her blog, Maryn McKenna, author of a book about antibiotic resistance called
Superbug and the first person to write about the report,
summarized some of the findings: In 2008, 45% of salmonella on chicken were resistant to the antibiotic tetracycline and 30% were immune to penicillins. Among enterococci bacteria on chicken, 65% were resistant to tetracycline and more than 90% to lincosamides, which include the everyday drug clindamycin.
Comment: While it is true that being morbidly obese or severely underweight can shorten a lifespan, the jury properly should still be out on smoking. In fact, if Dr. Ioannidis' principles were applied to smoking studies, it's likely that 99% of them would have to be thrown out.
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