EFN

A team of researchers testing raw turkey, pork, beef, and chicken purchased at grocery stores in five different cities across the U.S. say that roughly one in four of those samples tested positive for a multidrug antibiotic-resistant “superbug” bacterium.

The team were surprised to find that nearly half of samples of beef, pork and poultry tested from popular grocery stores were contaminated with Staphylococcus aureus, a bacteria that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) doesn’t even monitor in the food source, because it’s not known as a common food-borne pathogen. And of the bacteria found, nearly all were strains that were resistant to more than one antibiotic.

“For the first time, we know how much of our meat and poultry is contaminated with antibiotic-resistant Staph, and it is substantial,” Dr. Lance B. Price, senior author  of the study and Director of TGen’s Center for Food Microbiology and Environmental Health, said in a news release. “The fact that drug-resistant S. aureus was so prevalent, and likely came from the food animals themselves, is troubling, and demands attention to how antibiotics are used in food-animal production today.”

The FDA said it is aware of the study’s findings, and similar studies of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in meats, and is working with the U.S. Agriculture Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the issue.

Proper cooking kills the germs, and federal health officials estimate staph accounts for just 3 percent of foodborne illnesses, far less than more common bugs like salmonella and E. coli.