Scientists who look for ways to eliminate foodborne pathogens are up against another obstacle: those pathogens that resist antibiotics. In particular, they want to single out the resistant bacteria for special attention and get rid of them.
Continue Reading Zooming in on the Campylobacter That Would Resist Antibiotics

May 5, 2006
University of Arkansas, Food Safety Consortium via Newswise
Scientists who look for ways to eliminate foodborne pathogens are up against another obstacle: those pathogens that resist antibiotics. In particular, they want to single out the resistant bacteria for special attention and get rid of them.
That’s the focus occupying Ramakrishna Nannapaneni, a Food Safety Consortium researcher in the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture food science department working with Michael Johnson. His team is trying to quantify Campylobacter, a pathogen that contaminates nearly all retail raw broiler chicken carcasses, and its emerging ability to resist an important fluoroquinolone antibiotic known as ciprofloxacin.
Surveys have shown that broilers frequently carry large numbers of Campylobacter in their intestinal contents that spread during further processing onto retail raw products. Campylobacter also can occur in raw milk and water and on raw fruits and vegetables. Proper cooking recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture will completely kill Campylobacter present on raw poultry.Continue Reading Zooming in on the Campylobacter that would resist antibiotics

By Los Angeles Times
Tuesday, May 2, 2006 10:44 AM EDT
Avoiding the use of antibiotics in food animals appears to reduce drug resistance in humans, according to a study published online recently in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
The study involved the use of antibiotics called fluoroquinolones in Australian poultry.
Australia restricts use of the antibiotics in animal husbandry because the practice is thought to contribute to drug resistance in people who contract bacterial infections from eating contaminated food.Continue Reading Study: Antibiotics in food cause drug resistance in us

28/04/2006 17:08:00
Poultry World
Are happy chickens safe chickens? One researcher believes so, outlining a possible role of bird stress on the number of campylobacter positive flocks.
Speaking at the recent 2006 World Poultry Science Association meeting in York, Tom Humphrey of the University of Bristol revealed new results that show the incidence of campylobacter…

April 26, 2006
Washington Post
Bonnie S. Benwick
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which for decades had recommended that poultry be cooked to an internal temperature of 180 degrees for safe eating, has reevaluated that assessment.
Earlier this month, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service established 165 degrees as the single safe minimum internal temperature to kill food-borne pathogens and viruses in poultry.
The months of commissioned study and testing by the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods were not prompted by reports of overcooked white meat but by reported outbreaks of Salmonella bacteria that were traced to partially cooked, frozen poultry products.Continue Reading The roasted bird gets a temperature reprieve