Warnings as salmonella strains resist antibiotics

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Washington -- - A virulent outbreak of salmonella poisoning traced to three Foster Farms chicken plants in the Central Valley has peculiar features that food safety experts said should alarm regulators and consumers alike - in particular, the number of people who are coming down with a form of the disease that is resistant to antibiotics.

"We've been warning for a long time, but we are about to reach a serious, critical mass here," said Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., who has tried for a decade to restrict the use of antibiotics in food animals.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the outbreak has sickened 317 people, 73 percent of them in California, with strains of salmonella Heidelberg that resist multiple antibiotics.

Thirteen percent of victims developed blood poisoning, a potentially life-threatening complication, and 42 percent have been hospitalized, twice the typical rate for people who come down with salmonella. None of the victims has died.

The pathogens are resistant to the same antibiotics used to help livestock grow faster and to prevent disease among animals living in crowded conditions.

At least 70 percent of the antibiotics used in the United States annually are administered to healthy livestock at low, routine doses. The idea is to keep the animals from getting sick.

Such minimal doses, however, fail to kill disease-causing bugs that grow in cattle, chicken and other food animals - instead, they encourage them to evolve into drug-resistant strains.

Government urges caution

When the meat reaches consumers and isn't carefully prepared, it can cause salmonella - a disease characterized by a high fever and gastrointestinal problems.

Last month, the CDC confirmed a link between use of antibiotics in livestock and growing bacterial resistance that the agency said kills at least 23,000 people a year. The agency urged food producers to scale back the use of antibiotics that are used to save people's lives.

Two Foster Farms plants in Fresno and one in Livingston (Merced County) were identified as sources of the tainted chickens that caused the latest salmonella outbreak.

Foster Farms President Ron Foster posted an apology on the company's website, saying food safety "is - and has always been - at the very heart of our family business."

Despite the outbreak, the contaminated chicken has not been recalled because the U.S. Department of Agriculture does not consider salmonella an adulterant.

By coincidence, Costco recalled 40,000 pounds of rotisserie chicken Friday from its South San Francisco plant that state food safety regulators discovered to be contaminated with salmonella.

Craig Wilson, the chain's vice president of food safety, said the contamination was not connected to Foster Farm chickens. He said the source of the tainting was a mystery, adding that Costco cooks the chickens at 180 degrees, 15 degrees higher than called for under safety guidelines.

"The timing is strange with Foster Farms," Wilson said. "There are a lot of unanswered questions."

Resistance growing

The salmonella caused by the Foster Farms outbreak resists antibiotics that are commonly used in food animals, said Steven Roach, a senior analyst with Keep Antibiotics Working, a coalition of groups trying to limit antibiotic use in the food chain.

The main antibiotic class still effective in treating salmonella poisonings in people is cephalosporins, Roach said, "and we are seeing more resistance in salmonella to cephalosporin as well, although in this case that one will work. "

Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group, said the U.S. Department of Agriculture should declare salmonella an adulterant because new strains are growing more toxic. The agency says it cannot do so without a court order.

"We're dealing with a salmonella that poses a much greater risk to the public," DeWaal said.

The Food and Drug Administration proposed a voluntary plan in April 2012 for producers to scale back the use of antibiotics in livestock for growth promotion, but the agency has not issued final regulations. The industry would have three years to comply. The FDA would continue to allow the routine use of low doses of antibiotics to prevent diseases.

Slaughter, along with Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, and Senate Democrats Dianne Feinstein of California and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, have sponsored legislation to ban antibiotic use in healthy livestock. They have met with stiff industry resistance.

Bans 'irresponsible'

Tom Super, spokesman for the National Chicken Council, said that "antibiotics, when used properly and under veterinary oversight, are critical to keeping birds healthy and producing safe food." He called proposed bans on such uses "irresponsible."

Roach of Keep Antibiotics Working said antibiotic-resistant salmonella is common in part "because the USDA just accepts that chicken is routinely contaminated with salmonella."

He called the approach "dangerous when you have these multidrug-resistant strains. Yes, you can cook it, but what about the 300 people who got sick? Something is obviously going wrong here."