The Center for Science in the Public Interest has
renewed its push to have the United States Department of Agriculture declare
four antibiotic-resistant strains of salmonella as adulterants under federal
law.
That would wipe some chicken and other meats
off the market. For example, a recent study in South Korea found that close to
a quarter of the chicken in supermarkets carried salmonella and up to 80 per
cent of those salmonella strains were resistant to antibiotics.
In July, the department rejected a similar
petition the Centre for Science in the Public Interest filed in 2011.
The new petition asks the agency to declare the
strains as adulterants in all meat and poultry products.
The centre says two multi-state outbreaks of
antibiotic-resistant Salmonella Heidelberg linked to chicken from Foster Farms,
which sickened some 750 people and caused 233 hospitalizations, should be a
wake-up call.
The centre notes that the department declared
E. coli 0157:H7 an adulterant in 1994. then in 2011 added six
shiga-toxin-producing strains of E. coli.
The chances of stern action in Canada are even slimmer than in the United States because the marketing boards have politicians quaking in their boots.
