Fw: [BITES-L] bites Nov. 2/10
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bites Nov. 2/10
Scores on doors for all Australia?
AUSTRALIA: E-coli found in pouring cream
CANADIAN aquaculture industry alliance position: genetically modified salmon
US: "No-Till" farming is a growing practice
US: Getting rid of cattle fever ticks
Antimicrobial resistance of major foodborne pathogens from major meat products
Prevalence and antibiotic resistance of foodborne Staphylococcus aureus isolates in Turkey
Molecular characterization and environmental mapping of campylobacter isolates in a subset of intensive poultry flocks in Ireland
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Scores on doors for all Australia?
02.nov.10
barfblog
Doug Powell
http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/blog/144920/10/11/02/scores-doors-all-australia
Lord Young told the U.K. government last month that he welcomed the Food Standards Agency's decision to "drop the unfortunate title 'scores on doors'" to describe restaurant inspection disclosure.
The POHMEs (Prisoner of Her Majesty's Exile) have done their own review of the national food safety system and recommended that scores on doors be rolled out across Australia.
Good for them.
The national food safety review states that two-thirds of the 5.4 million cases of gastroenteritis in Australia each year can be attributed to food poisoning from restaurants, takeaway outlets, caterers and cafes (in a population of 21.4 million).
But, according to The Australian, it warns that the existing 2003 guidelines "may not provide the guidance needed to develop an effective food safety management approach for retail/food service."
Under the existing national rules, local councils inspect food outlets to check they are complying with basic standards for food hygiene and preparation. The safety standards are "outcome-based," replacing prescriptive regulations in each state.
But NSW, Victoria and Queensland have since broken away from the national system, imposing "add-on" requirements for staff working in food service and retailing to attend food training courses.
"State and local governments in some Australian jurisdictions are developing or piloting voluntary schemes that assign a 'food safety rating' based on routine inspection outcomes," the consultation paper, prepared for the Food Regulation Standing Committee of federal, state and territory food ministers, says.
"These approaches may provide a 'positive' incentive by publicising good food safety performance."
NSW, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and Victoria already use websites to "name and shame" companies fined over food safety breaches -- yet Victoria has only three prosecutions on its website, compared to 1821 penalty notices in NSW.
Restaurant inspection is a snapshot in time and disclosure is no panacea. But it can boost the overall culture of food safety, hold operators accountable, and is a way of marketing food safety so that consumers can choose.
http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/blog/144589/10/10/15/scores-doors-too-clear-uk-restaurant-grading-schemes
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/health/hygiene-blitz-to-cut-food-sickness/story-fn59nokw-1225946941320
AUSTRALIA: E-coli found in pouring cream
02.nov.10
ABC News
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/11/02/3055417.htm
A popular pouring cream, available in South Australia and the Northern Territory, is being recalled after it was found to contain the bacteria E-coli.
The recall applies to the Fleurieu Milk company's Pouring Cream with use by dates between November 4 and 16.
SA Health says it is not aware of anyone becoming ill but the cream should be returned or thrown away as a precaution.
CANADIAN aquaculture industry alliance position: genetically modified salmon
01.nov.10
Marine Harvest
http://www.marineharvestcanada.com/blog/?p=1151
A Massachusetts-based company is seeking US regulatory approval for its genetically modified salmon eggs, which have been claimed to grow faster than conventional salmon. On behalf of Canada's aquaculture industry, which includes salmon farmers on both coasts, the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance (CAIA) would like to state its position on the matter: 1. The Canadian aquaculture industry does not support the commercial production of transgenic fish for human consumption. 2. The Canadian aquaculture industry is not researching or growing transgenic fish. 3. Canada's current fish breeding practices enable the production of quality products that are in high demand from both domestic and international markets. Our position is consistent with that of the International Salmon Farmer's Association and will not change until the transgenic fish has been declared safe by all relevant regulatory bodies AND until the market demands it. For further information on CAIA, please visit www.aquaculture.ca.
US: "No-Till" farming is a growing practice
02.nov.10
USDA's Economic Research Service
John Horowitz, Robert Ebel, and Kohei Ueda
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/EIB70/#2010-11-2
Most U.S. farmers prepare their soil for seeding and weed and pest control through tillage—plowing operations that disturb the soil. Tillage practices affect soil carbon, water pollution, and farmers' energy and pesticide use, and therefore data on tillage can be valuable for understanding the practice's role in reaching climate and other environmental goals. In order to help policymakers and other interested parties better understand U.S. tillage practices and, especially, those practices' potential contribution to climate-change efforts, ERS researchers compiled data from the Agricultural Resource Management Survey and the National Resources Inventory-Conservation Effects Assessment Project's Cropland Survey. The data show that approximately 35.5 percent of U.S. cropland planted to eight major crops, or 88 million acres, had no tillage operations in 2009.
Keywords: Tillage, no-till, Agricultural Resource Management Survey, ARMS, U.S. crop practices, National Resources Inventory-Conservation Effects Assessment Project, NRI-CEAP, carbon baseline, carbon sequestration, ERS, USDA
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US: Getting rid of cattle fever ticks
02.nov.10
USDA's Agricultural Research Service
Sharon Durham
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2010/101102.htm
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have developed two strategies to ward off cattle fever ticks that are crossing the border from Mexico into the United States. These ticks transmit bovine babesiosis, commonly known as Texas cattle fever, a deadly disease of cattle that's caused by singled-celled organisms.
Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists in Kerrville, Texas, are developing and testing new interventions to eliminate cattle fever ticks within U.S. borders and mitigate the impact on the livestock industry. ARS is USDA's principal intramural scientific research agency, and this research promotes the USDA priority of promoting international food security.
The increased spread of infestation is likely due, at least in part, to the increasing populations of white-tailed deer and other wild hoofed animals along the Texas-Mexico border. To control disease-carrying ticks on deer, ARS entomologist J. Mathews Pound and his colleagues at the agency's Knipling-Bushland U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory developed a device called the 4-Poster Deer Treatment Bait Station.
The bait station lures deer into a feeding apparatus that uses rollers to apply insecticide to the animal's head, ears and neck. As the deer grooms itself, it transfers the insecticide to other parts of its body, killing most of the ticks on the animal.
Pound and colleagues also have reformulated a broad-spectrum antiparasitic medication called doramectin into an injectable, time-release treatment. According to Pound, a single injection of the microspheres greatly reduces the number of treatments needed and protects cattle for up to four months, killing parasites and saving cattle ranchers considerable expense.
The treatment has been tested with excellent results on the island of St. Croix against the tropical bont tick, which transmits a disease called heartwater to cattle. Pound and his colleagues are working to extend the effective period to six months, which would be most useful in treating U.S. cattle for ticks.
Read more about this research in the November/December 2010 issue of Agricultural Research magazine, available online at: http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/nov10/ticks1110.htm .
Antimicrobial resistance of major foodborne pathogens from major meat products
01.nov.10
Foodborne Pathogens and Disease
Panagiota Gousia, Vagelis Economou, Hercules Sakkas, Stamatina Leveidiotou, Chrissanthy Papadopoulou
http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/fpd.2010.0577
Abstract
The bacterial contamination of raw and processed meat products with resistant pathogens was studied. The raw samples included sheep (40), goat (40), pork (120), beef (80), and chicken (19) meat, and the processed samples included turkey filets (33), salami (8), readymade mincemeat (16), stuffing (22), and roast-beef (50). The samples were collected from retail shops in Northwestern Greece over a period of 3 years. The isolated pathogens were evaluated for susceptibilities to 19 antimicrobial agents used in humans. Out of 428 samples, 157 strains of Escherichia coli, 25 of Yersinia enterocolitica, 57 of Staphylococcus aureus, 57 of Enterococcus spp., 4 of Salmonella spp., and 3 of Campylobacter jejuni were isolated. Among the isolates 14.6% of the E. coli, 10.5% of S. aureus, 4% of Y. enterocolitica, 25% of Salmonella spp., and 42.1% of Enterococcus spp. were susceptible to antibiotics. E. coli from chicken exhibited high rates of resistance to ciprofloxacin (62.5%) followed by lamb/goat (10.9%), pork (15.7%), and beef (27.9%) meat. Resistance to nitrofurantoin dominated in the lamb/goat isolates (60%). Resistance to tetracycline predominated in pork (68.2%) and chicken (62.5%), and resistance to aminoglycosides dominated in lamb/goat meat isolates. S. aureus resistance to clindamycin predominated in lamb/goat isolates (50%), whereas resistance to ciprofloxacin predominated in the pork strains, but no resistance to methicillin was observed. Of the enterococci isolates 21.1% were resistant to vancomycin. High resistance to ampicillin (96%) was observed in Y. enterocolitica and all of the C. jejuni isolates were resistant to ampicillin, cephalothin, and cefuroxime. These results indicate that meat can be a source of resistant bacteria, which could potentially be spread to the community through the food chain.
Prevalence and antibiotic resistance of foodborne Staphylococcus aureus isolates in Turkey
01.nov.10
Foodborne Pathogens and Disease
Ali Aydin, Karlo Muratoglu, Mert Sudagidan, Kamil Bostan, Burcu Okuklu, Sebnem Harsa
http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/fpd.2010.0613
Abstract
In this study, 154 Staphylococcus aureus isolates were detected from 1070 food samples (14.4%) collected from seven cities in Turkey. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing against 21 antibiotics was performed by agar disk diffusion method, and those isolates resistant to any antibiotic were further analyzed to determine minimum inhibitory concentration by E-test and polymerase chain reaction analysis of vanA and mecA genes. According to disk diffusion test results, a total of 139 strains were resistant to at least one tested antibiotic, with 39 (25.3%) strains being multidrug resistant (MDR) and the other 15 strains being susceptible to all antibiotics. Penicillin G, linezolid, erythromycin, and tetracycline took up 71.4%, 23.4%, 18.2%, and 15.6% of the tested strains, respectively. In addition, all of the strains were susceptible to vancomycin, oxacillin, cefoxitin, and imipenem. Only one strain (S158B) was resistant to both teicoplanin and cefazolin. On the other hand, the presence of vanA and mecA genes was not detected in the strains. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis analysis was used to identify genetic-relatedness of the MDR strains. It is noteworthy that some strains from different sources showed 100% homology; however, some of MDR strains were found unrelated with 60% or less homology. The high diversity observed in pulsed-field gel electrophoresis results indicated the possible contamination of S. aureus from different sources and routes.
Molecular characterization and environmental mapping of campylobacter isolates in a subset of intensive poultry flocks in Ireland
01.nov.10
Foodborne Pathogens and Disease
Alessandro Patriarchi, Áine Fox, Bláithín Maunsell, Séamus Fanning, Declan Bolton
http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/fpd.2010.0637
Abstract
Irish breeder and intensive broiler flocks together with the corresponding poultry farm environment were sampled for the presence of Campylobacter with the aim of identifying potential sources and transmission routes of poultry flock contamination. The genetic diversity of a subset of Campylobacter isolates was examined by analysis of the flaA-short variable region (SVR). Additional discrimination for a further subset of these isolates was achieved using multilocus sequence typing (MLST) analysis. Twenty-four flaA-SVR alleles and 15 FlaA peptides were detected among 92 Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli isolates. MLST data have been determined for 30 of 92 (32.6%) flaA-SVR–typed isolates with 13 sequence types (STs) present, which were assigned to seven clonal complexes. ST45 was the most common ST identified. Vertical transmission was not found to have played a role in transmission of the pathogen to the poultry flocks. Subtyping by flaA-SVR and MLST identified the practice of partial thinning of flocks as a potential source and route of flock contamination on one broiler farm and implicated a probable source of flock contamination on another. Although there have been several studies reported in the scientific literature, the findings from this study confirmed previous studies and suggested some new transmission pathways including via transport crates. Cross-contamination from adjacent cattle is a new development, and molecular evidence of the role of transport crates in introducing Campylobacter spp. into the broiler house is a recent finding. Further, this study reports the discovery of five new flaA-SVR allele types and eight new STs. These were widespread and persistent in the poultry environment. This new knowledge may explain why despite the on-farm Campylobacter data published to date, there are still no completely effective on-farm control measures to prevent Campylobacter contamination of broiler flocks.
bites is produced by Dr. Douglas Powell and food safety friends at Kansas State University. For further information, please contact dpowell@ksu.edu or check out bites.ksu.edu.
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