Meat contaminated: US meat contaminated with staph bacteria - latimes.com
"widely contaminated" (based on samples)
"nearly half" - 47%: of those, 52% were resistant to at least 3 classes of antibiotics
Antibiotics are given to meat animals because they live in too crowded of pens, increasing risk of disease. About 11,000 people per year die from s. aureus and about half of those have MRSA (antibiotic resistant staph.)
Staph in the meat can be killed by cooking it well but this does not eliminate the threat of more and more humans becoming resistant to antibiotics, which is happening.
(image from Drug resistance: Consumers can take precautions - latimes.com, where caption says meat should be handled only with gloves)
Of course there is a meat industry rebuttal.
Drug resistance: Meat industry fires back - latimes.com
The American Meat Industry disputes the study on the basis of small sample size: 136 samples from 80 brands in 26 stores. They also suggest that the contamination could come from meat handlers rather than meat. They also point out that food-borne illness is on the decline. They do not directly address the issue of antibiotic resistance (which is on the increase) other than to say there is not enough evidence. In toto, this is a pretty lame collection of excuses.
Organic small farm meat is available but not to the masses, and it is expensive. The obvious suggestion would be to eat less meat and to educate the public about other protein sources, especially in view of public health costs and the obesity epidemic. This will not happen when we have a massive corporate meat lobby in the US, just as we have a huge tobacco lobby.
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