New research has concluded that all E. coli pathogens are killed at that temperature.

“The last time people wrote articles about this in 2016, there was work that referenced the implication that 71 C was not safe,” said Mark Klassen, director of technical services with the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association.

“That created a lot of questions in media across North America.”

In a worst-case scenario, E. coli can cause death. In others, people recover from nausea, vomiting, severe stomach cramps, and other symptoms of food poisoning, but suffer damage to organs such as their kidneys.

“It doesn’t take much to make you ill,” said Klassen. “It could be 10 pathogens.”

That’s why it is important to precisely determine the temperature that kills all E. coli pathogens when cooking beef.

“I was concerned about this,” said Klassen. “We got a lot of questions in 2016 around the heat-resistant aspect and thought we needed some research to really be able to address it.”

He assembled a team of five scientists from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Lacombe to conduct the study.

“We had access to large numbers of samples from feedlots that had been part of another project of E. coli,” he said. “We also had some strains that had been used in previous research that were isolated from meat plants. We basically ended up — through previous work and in the most recent study — narrowing them down to strains that we thought were particularly relevant.”

These types were the most heat-resistant E. coli and the most heat-resistant E. coli that was pathogenic.

“We ended up finding that the most heat resistant of all was a non-pathogenic strain, so we used that to demonstrate that 71 C was sufficient. We put 100 million of those in a hamburger patty,” said Klassen.

The burger was cooked to 71 C and then plunged in a bath of ice water before being tested.

“We also tested it by waiting for three minutes and five minutes, to mimic what we might expect to see because very few people take a fork, put it in a burger, and then put it in their mouth from the grill,” said Klassen, noting that if you did that “your mouth would be cooked by the burger.”

The results, even in the worst-case scenario, showed all the E. coli pathogens were killed at 71 C.

“Our research found that if you let it cool for 13 seconds, all 100 million of those would be destroyed — and if you wait three or five minutes, you’re very safe,” he said.

“It’s important to note that in the real world, you would not have 100 million heat-resistant E. coli in your burger.”

The study is not only important on the food safety side, but also when it comes to enjoying your meal as cooking beef to a hotter temperature dries it out.

“There are food safety implications, and there are eating quality implications. We didn’t want to adversely affect the quality of the product unless there is good reason to do so.”

After all, ground beef is the most popular beef product and makes up 40 per cent of sales.

“This is a very important recommendation,” said Klassen. “You have to be sure that it is right. But we also don’t want to be creating a situation where it is overcooked either.”

The post There’s a magic number when cooking beef — and it’s 71 C appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“Reported infections of campylobacter in Canada outnumber all the well-known causes of bacterial food poisoning including salmonella, shigella, listeria, and toxigenic E. coli combined,” said Christine Szymanski, CEO of VaxAlta Inc., which created the vaccine.

“If you ask most people, they’ve heard of E. coli, salmonella, and listeria, because those pathogens are typically associated with outbreaks. Campylobacter is mostly associated with sporadic cases of infection so it never makes it into the news, but it’s a huge problem worldwide.”

In developed countries like Canada, infection by C. jejuni is “usually self-limiting” — which means the situation usually resolves itself without treatment, said Szymanski, who is also a professor at the University of Alberta.

But in developing countries, C. jejuni is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality.

“C. jejuni is highly prevalent,” she said. “It’s found contaminating the surfaces of most sources of poultry, but there are no product recalls as you see with other bacteria, like E. coli and listeria.

“And, even if a product tests positive for campylobacter, there is currently no measure to control it. But once we have a vaccine available that is effective, this would help the regulatory bodies to put restrictions on the levels of campylobacter that are allowed to be on poultry products.”

This is the first vaccine that has shown any promise against C. jejuni, which has no effect on its poultry hosts but causes diarrhea in humans, said Szymanski.

“There have been multiple attempts by other researchers to develop vaccines against C. jejuni that have shown limited success,” she said.

“We’re excited by the large drops in C. jejuni colonization that we observed in chickens.”

This vaccine, which should hit the market in the next two years, is also the first glycoconjugate — or sugar-based — vaccine developed for use in livestock.

“Sugars coat every living cell, and bacteria are notorious for making unique sugars that we don’t possess,” said Szymanski.

“Several successful glycoconjugate vaccines have been created for use in humans, especially as part of childhood vaccination programs. But the problem with large-scale production of these glycoconjugate vaccines is that they are too expensive to be used in livestock.”

In order to get around that, Szymanski’s team has used weakened carriers, like harmless strains of E. coli, to produce the necessary bacterial sugars that will “generate good immune responses and eliminate the pathogen of interest.”

“That allows us then to immunize chickens with an inexpensive vaccine that provides protection,” she said.

“And because our vaccine carrier is eliminated prior to the time for chicken slaughter and the gut bacteria in the chicken are not altered, the glycoconjugate vaccine is safe for use in food animals.”

This is an “unexploited niche” for VaxAlta, which is also working on livestock vaccines for other types of foodborne pathogens.

“The glycoengineering approach is a platform technology for us,” said Szymanski. “The C. jejuni vaccine is one of our first-generation glycoconjugate vaccines, but we’re quite far advanced in making other poultry vaccines against relevant foodborne pathogens. Clostridium perfringens is one of these pathogens that we’re targeting because it causes necrotic enteritis in chickens and food poisoning in humans.

“Our end goal is to create safe livestock vaccines that will eliminate the use of antibiotics.”

The post New vaccine for most common type of food poisoning appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Scientists from the University of Alberta have found a new heat-resistant E. coli that can survive at 71 C — the level of heat advised by Health Canada for proper cooking.

“We discovered that some strains of E. coli have genetics in them that make them heat resistant when they are in wet meat,” said Lynn McMullen, a meat microbiologist and professor of food microbiology, who discovered the new strains with colleague Michael Ganzle.

Most strains of E. coli die when heated to around 60 C in a broth, but the new strains can survive for up to 70 minutes.

“Typically, if you cook a burger to 71 C, you get very good kill,” said McMullen. “But with this strain, we didn’t. Fortunately the strain we found is not a pathogen.”

There are two types of E. coli bacteria; pathogenic and non-pathogenic. The pathogenic type can make people sick, while the non-pathogenic type are responsible for spoiling meat. Symptoms of the sickness include nausea, cramping, vomiting and bloody diarrhea. Ingesting E. coli can lead to death, especially in vulnerable populations.

The discovery means Health Canada may need to change its recommended cooking temperatures for meat.

McMullen and Ganzle, who have been working on the pro-ject for eight years, know there are heat-resistant strains similar to 0157, the strain that makes people sick. About two per cent of all E. coli in publicly available databases have the gene for heat resistance. The discovery of the new heat-resistant strains of E. coli could explain why there continue to be sporadic E. coli cases.

McMullen’s team will continue conducting experiments to determine how to kill heat-resistant strains of E. coli.

“We have tons of work to do. Our next step is to figure out what we need to do to control these organisms,” she said.

E. coli can be found in all types of meat, and adding salt to the meat makes the situation much worse. The researchers don’t know how common the new heat-resistant strains are.

“We need to find out what’s out there and this is difficult because the processors don’t want us going into their processing plants looking for E. coli and other pathogens,” she said.

The researchers will get around this by accessing other culture collections and collecting different strains from researchers in Canada and the United States.

But for now?

“Our best advice is for people to use a thermometer when they are cooking and make sure that things get over 71 C,” she said.

The post Alberta scientists discover new heat-resistant strains of E. coli appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

A number of questions, concerns and criticisms have been raised by the North American Meat Institute, the International Food Information Council, Business Insider, and others. Rather than answer the specific questions raised, Consumer Reports encouraged people to read the report more closely.

Unfortunately, reading the report more closely simply raises more questions about the expertise and/or integrity of Consumer Reports and its “policy and action arm,” Consumers Union.

• More on the Alberta Farmer: What Consumer Reports said about beef safety

Here’s one example: The Danger of Superbugs heads a section on Page 10 and 11 detailing the health hazards posed by Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) such as E. coli 0157. This section implies antimicrobial resistance will make STEC infections more difficult to treat. This is not true.

Antibiotics are not used to treat STEC infections in people. Instead, treatments for STEC infections focus on replacing fluids due to diarrhea. In fact, antibiotic use is strongly discouraged in both Canada and the U.S. because they could make the situation worse.

Antibiotics are not used to treat STEC infections in people, so antibiotic resistance will not make STEC infections more difficult to treat.

If antibiotics are not used to treat STEC infections in people, why is E. coli used in antimicrobial-resistance surveillance programs?

Antimicrobial-resistance surveillance programs in Canada and the U.S. use E. coli as an indicator organism for several reasons. First, E. coli is found in all warm-blooded animals and birds, and survives to some extent in the environment. Although some E. coli (like the STECs) are dangerous, the vast majority of E. coli is perfectly harmless (and some are even beneficial). Because E. coli is found almost everywhere, E. coli-based surveillance programs can always find it, and it is easy to grow and identify in the lab. Second, although antibiotics are not used to combat STEC infections in humans, E. coli is exposed to antibiotics that are used to treat other bacterial infections. This makes E. coli a valuable indicator of how antimicrobial use can affect the overall bacterial population. Third, bacteria can trade antimicrobial-resistance genes with each other, so rates of antimicrobial resistance in E. coli can indicate the degree to which antimicrobial-resistance rates may be changing in the overall bacterial population.

What are the actual rates of antimicrobial resistance in E. coli in Canadian beef? The Canadian Integrated Program for Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance (CIPARS) has collected E. coli samples from retail beef since 2002. The 2013 CIPARS report indicates that 74 per cent of E. coli isolates from retail beef could be killed by every antimicrobial tested, while four per cent were resistant to three or more antimicrobial classes.

Canada’s beef industry remains focused on ensuring the safety of Canadian beef. Research funded through the Canadian Beef Cattle Industry Science Cluster has clearly demonstrated that large Canadian beef processors do an excellent job of producing dressed carcasses that are essentially free of microbial contamination.

As well, Canada’s beef industry has supported antimicrobial use and resistance research for nearly two decades. This research gives strong evidence that Canada’s beef producers are using antimicrobials responsibly. They have good reasons for doing so. The beef industry needs to ensure that these veterinary products remain effective to prevent or treat illness in cattle for economic and ethical reasons. Like everyone else, beef producers also need to ensure that medical antimicrobials continue to work when they or their family need to use them. We need cattle to remain healthy so that they can produce safe, high-quality beef. We also need to ensure that consumers can have confidence that they are buying safe, affordable, high-quality beef that was raised in a responsible and sustainable manner.

The numerous misleading statements in the Beef Report are no reason for consumers to lose confidence in the safety of Canadian beef, or the Canadian beef industry’s ongoing commitments to keep it safe. Provided consumers continue to cook ground beef to 71 C, science says that the beef for sale in Canadian (and American) grocers is a safe, nutritious, responsible and sustainable food choice.

The Beef Science Cluster is funded by checkoffs, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, industry, and other governments to advance research and technology transfer supporting the Canadian beef industry’s vision to be recognized as a preferred supplier of healthy, high-quality beef, cattle and genetics.

The post Science lacking in alarmist report on beef safety appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The danger of superbugs

Foodborne illness caused by drug-resistant bacteria, such as the antibiotic-resistant strains of salmonella that have caused beef-related outbreaks in recent years, are also a major cause for concern. Infections caused by drug-resistant bacteria can be more difficult to treat and are a major public health problem.

In fact, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) estimates that each year more than 23,000 people die as a result of an infection caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Despite the importance and prevalence of that problem, the government does not have requirements related to antibiotic-resistant bacteria in any meat product.

Two of the most important bacteria responsible for outbreaks attributed to ground beef are toxin-producing E. coli and salmonella.

• More on the Alberta Farmer: Science lacking in alarmist report on beef safety

Shiga toxin-producing E. coli

Although most cases of foodborne illness are simple cases of vomiting and diarrhea that resolve after a day or so, some bacteria found in ground beef, such as Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) can be very dangerous. STEC produces Shiga toxin and can cause severe illness that can last five to seven days and even be so severe that infections require hospital treatment.

Additionally, some people can be left with a life-threatening condition called hemolytic uremic syndrome, which damages the kidneys. STECs are also concerning because they can cause those serious infections at relatively low infectious doses. The STECs can live in the cattle’s gut and are often found on hides, but they cause disease only in humans, not in the cattle.

Recent data published by the CDC show that incidence of illness caused by E. coli 0157:H7 in the U.S. decreased in 2014 to 0.92 cases per 100,000 people, compared with the incidences measured in 2006 to 2008 or 2011 to 2013; the incidence of infections caused by non-0157:H7 STECs and other pathogens did not decrease and remained higher than target rates defined in the government’s Healthy People 2020 goals.

Since 1994, the USDA has considered E. coli 0157:H7 in ground beef to be an adulterant, and in 2012, it added six of the most common non-0157:H7 E. coli STECs (the “Big 6”) to the list of adulterants.

That means that if those bacteria are found during processing in ground beef or in intact beef destined to become ground beef, the product cannot be sold unless it is to be further processed (cooked). Controls for those toxic STEC E. coli are included as part of Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Points (HACCP) at processing plants, and if any are detected, the product is considered adulterated and must be discarded, and the plant must report the result to FSIS.

FSIS does not actually require plants to do regular testing for E. coli 0157:H7 or other pathogens that may cause severe food poisoning, but only for generic E. coli. Generic E. coli is considered by FSIS to be a measure of fecal contamination and a measure of the effectiveness of sanitation in plants, yet there is no performance standard for generic E. coli.

Consumer Reports believes there should be performance standards for filth indicator organisms such as generic E. coli, as well as required tests for STECs. FSIS conducts its own testing for E. coli 0157:H7 and other STECs in beef at processing plants, but there are important limitations, including the frequency and prior notice of inspection to establishments regarding sampling, which could allow plants to temporarily alter procedures.

Interestingly, there are a number of factors related to the way cattle are raised that may affect their levels of generic E. coli and E. coli 0157:H7 within and shed from their intestines. For example, cattle eating grain-based diets appear to shed higher levels of generic E. coli than forage-fed animals. Studies of 0157:H7-specific shedding are suggestive of the same, although there are mixed results. Stress and feedlot confinement also foster poor hygiene practices that can increase contamination.

Salmonella

Although the reported prevalence of salmonella is low, the morbidity and mortality caused by foodborne illness from salmonella is significant, and drug resistance is particularly concerning because outbreak strains found in beef have been resistant to several important clinical antibiotics, including first-line agents prescribed to treat salmonella and other infections. Among the recent, large multi-state outbreaks that have been caused by salmonella-contaminated ground beef, the strain responsible for the 2011 outbreak was notable for its resistance to multiple antibiotics, including amoxicillin/clavulanic acid, ampicillin, ceftriaxone, cefoxitin, kanamycin, streptomycin, sulfisoxazole, and tetracycline. Ceftriaxone is an example of a recommended antibiotic prescribed for salmonella infections in humans, and strains resistant to those agents would be more difficult to treat, even in the hospital. FSIS has a performance standard of 7.5 per cent for salmonella in ground beef.

The post What Consumer Reports said about beef safety appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.