Salmonella on the Rise in Chicken Meat
Pastor Dale Morgan
Salmonella on the Rise in Chicken Meat*
Nov 21 8:48 PM US/Eastern
By LIBBY QUAID
AP Food and Farm Writer
WASHINGTON
A type of salmonella found in eggs is turning up more often in chicken
meat and needs to be reduced, according to the Agriculture Department.
From 2000 through 2005, there was a fourfold increase in positive test
results for salmonella enteritidis on chicken carcasses.
"It still continues to rise, even though the overall incidence of
salmonella in general has fallen," said Richard Raymond, the Agriculture
Department undersecretary for food safety. "It's one that we still don't
have all the scientific evidence we need to know how best to attack it."
Salmonella sickens at least 40,000 people and kills about 600 every year
in the United States.
Many different salmonella bacteria make people sick, but salmonella
enteritidis is one of the most common. It causes fever, stomach cramps
and diarrhea, and in vulnerable people, infection can turn deadly by
spreading beyond the intestine to the bloodstream.
It used to be that eggs got contaminated with salmonella on the outside,
from contact with fecal bacteria. But in recent years, the salmonella
enteritidis strain has been found inside intact, disinfected, grade A
eggs. This type of germ contaminates eggs inside a hen's ovaries, before
shells are even formed.
Now the germ is turning up in broiler chickens, the kind used for meat,
according to research by the Agriculture Department published in the
December issue of the Emerging Infectious Diseases journal of the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The research found:
_Positive tests for salmonella enteritidis increased fourfold from 2000
through 2005.
_The proportion of plants with positive tests for salmonella enteritidis
increased threefold during that time.
_The number of states with positive tests for salmonella enteritidis
rose from 14 to 24.
The research was done before the Agriculture Department started a new
program to reduce positive tests for salmonella.
Since then, the incidence of salmonella has fallen from 18 percent in
2005 to 10 percent today, Raymond said.
"Even though that particular bug is going up, the overall incidence of
food-borne illness from salmonella is declining, and the amount of
salmonella positives have shown a dramatic drop," Raymond said.
Cooking poultry to 165 degrees will kill the salmonella germ. The
government also strongly recommends that people use food thermometers
and follow basic rules for kitchen safety: wash hands often, keep raw
poultry and meat separate from cooked food, and refrigerate or freeze
food right away.
However, a recent CDC study on food poisoning from salmonella noted that
the risk of illness from salmonella enteritidis increased the less
people ate at home.
"This measure may, in fact, be considered to be a proxy for eating a
larger number of commercially prepared meals," the CDC found.
That study said that while overall infections from salmonella were lower
than in the mid-1990s, infections from salmonella enteritidis were 25
percent higher.
While salmonella is commonly found in poultry, it is found in many other
products, from pork and beef to raw fruits and vegetables and dairy
products.
___
On the Net:
Agriculture Department research:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol12no12/06-0653.htm?s_cideid06_06 53_e cit