C diff in meat | Arthritis Information

MSNBC:
An Arizona researcher found 40 percent of meat products tested from three national chain stores were contaminated with bacteria normally associated with severe hospital infections. Federal health officials, however, say more study is needed to determine whether C. diff is transmitted through food.
A potentially deadly intestinal germ increasingly found in hospitals is also showing up in a more unsavory setting: grocery store meats.
More than 40 percent of packaged meats sampled from three Arizona chain stores tested positive for Clostridium difficile, a gut bug known as C. diff., according to newly complete analysis of 2006 data collected by a University of Arizona scientist.
Nearly 30 percent of the contaminated samples of ground beef, pork and turkey and ready-to-eat meats like summer sausage were identical or closely related to a super-toxic strain of C. diff blamed for growing rates of illness and death in the U.S. — raising the possibility that the bacterial infections may be transmitted through food.
“These data suggest that domestic animals, by way of retail meats, may be a source of C. difficile for human infection,” said J. Glenn Songer, a professor of veterinary science at the Tucson school, who talked with msnbc.com about work now under review by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But specialists from the CDC and scientists who study C. diff said the connection between the presence of C. diff bacteria and infection has not been established and that there’s not enough evidence about food transmission to warrant public alarm.
“There are no documented cases of people getting Clostridium difficile infection from eating food that contains C. difficile,” said Dr. L. Clifford McDonald, chief of prevention and response for a division of the CDC. “However, because C. difficile has been found in some retail meats, that possibility does exist.”
Songer's samples included brands sold in grocery stores across the nation. Contamination ranged from 41 percent of pork products and 44 percent of turkey products to 50 percent of ground beef samples and more than 62 percent of samples of braunschweiger, a type of liverwurst.
Nearly three-quarters of the C. diff spores were toxinotype V, a type linked to illness in pigs and calves and, increasingly, in humans, Songer noted.

For story go to: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27774614

This is a bad bug and those of us who are immunocompromised need to be careful.How much do you want to bet it's another reason to eat well done food? I love rare. Sigh.

I wonder if this is what happened to my neice.

Pip

Certainly something to think about and another reason to cook foods till they done, not medium, but done. Seems like CD would be epedemic if you could get it from contaminated foods. Intersting findings. Lindy I love medium well cooked so not sure if that is all killed or not but I'm not changing my doneness. It makes me want to grow a beef and have it butchered. Thinking about that more and more all the time.

We bought a side of beef twice. Twice the deep freeze went down. Storm tripped electric in garage we didnt catch it until things were, well lets just say things were a lil "germy".

If you do butcher, make sure you get a freezer alarm or check it everyday. I now buy from our local meat processing company. I keep my eye on that dang freezer now.