The Forgotten Cure: A New Book on Phages

Scientific American editor, Anna Kuchment, has recently published a comprehensive history of phage therapy. I started reading a few chapters online and am very impressed. This fascinating and well written book will appeal to a wide audience of readers - beyond those interested in science, medicine, food production, food safety, personal health and our other obsessions here.  Above all, it's a good read.

Before moving to Scientific American, Anna Kuchment was a writer and editor at Newsweek International and Newsweek magazine. At Newsweek, she worked out of the Moscow bureau and covered technology, science, and medicine among many other topics. Kuchment also has appeared as a featured guest on BBC TV, CNN Headline News and MSNBC. Kuchment is part of Scientific American's roster of editors available to media as expert guests who can translate science news of the day in plain English.

Click here for a preview.

Thanks for reading Food Safety Solutions. For more information on phages for your food safety, please visit www.intralytix.com.

Want Safer Beef for One to Two Cents More?

Dr. James Hammitt, a researcher at Harvard University has said in USA Today that American beef consumers are willing to pay 1 cent to 2 cents a pound to reduce the risk of E. coli O157:H7 illnesses. "Common sense plus our paper and many others suggest consumers will pay more for safer food."

 If we as consumers can buy beef that has been naturally treated to be rid of E. coli 0157:H7, for just an extra penny or two per pound, of course we would. 


Now, food producers need to stop dragging their feet with old processes that alter the taste, appearance and smell of food and still don't effectively wipe out E. coli. 

There are smarter, better and healthier food safety options than ammonium hydroxide, aka Pink Slime. 


EcoShield, the newest, most effective intervention against E. coli 0157:H7 is a phage based food additive and natural antimicrobial.  

Approved by the FDA and USDA in 2011,  EcoShield is all natural and not genetically modified; it does not contain preservatives; it does not alter food flavor, aroma, or appearance; and does not contain any known, potentially allergenic substances. EcoShield is also certified both Kosher and Halal, and is cost effective and cost competitive.

For more information on EcoShield or other Intralytix all-natural food safety products, please visit intralytix.com or contact me here at Food Safety Solutions.  

Antibiotic Drug Resistance Regains Attention

Last week US Federal regulators announced that farmers and ranchers must restrict their use of certain critical antibiotics in cattle, pigs, chickens, and turkeys because of the growing threat for people with bacterial infections that are resistant to treatment.

from CBS News...
FDA officials have long believed antibiotics given to animals before slaughter are linked to growing antibiotic resistance in humans. But they have previously struggled with the issue because the powerful livestock industry says the drugs are needed to keep animals healthy. Now, consumers are more aware of the issue and are also clamoring for antibiotic-free meat.

The agency's order will limit cephalosporins, which are given to some cattle, swine, chickens and turkeys before slaughter. The drugs are used to treat pneumonia, skin infections and meningitis, among other diseases, in humans.

Cephalosporins, which are injected directly into eggs or animals, are not as widely used as many other antibiotics that are mixed with animal feed in massive quantities. But they are significant because they are used in life-threatening situations for humans - and lives could be lost if resistance is built up over time.

"This is an incredibly critical class of antibiotics for humans," said David Wallinga, a physician at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minnesota and a member of the Keep Antibiotics Working coalition. "In the medical world you'd call it a `big gun' or a `drug of last resort.' It's effective against a pretty broad spectrum of bacteria."   more

from the New York Times...
Federal drug regulators announced on Wednesday that farmers and ranchers must restrict their use of a critical class of antibiotics in cattle, pigs, chickens and turkeys because such practices may have contributed to the growing threat in people of bacterial infections that are resistant to treatment.


The medicines are known as cephalosporins and include brands like Cefzil and Keflex. They are among the most common antibiotics prescribed to treat pneumonia, strep throat, and skin and urinary tract infections. Surgeons also often use them before surgery, and they are particularly popular among pediatricians.

The drugs’ use in agriculture has, according to many microbiologists, led to the development of bacteria that are resistant to their effects, a development that many doctors say has cost thousands of lives.

Antibiotics were the wonder drugs of the 20th century, and their initial uses in both humans and animals were indiscriminate. Farmers became so enamored of the miraculous effects of penicillin and tetracycline on the robustness of cattle, chickens and pigs that the drugs were added in bulk to feed and water, with no need for prescriptions or any sign of sickness in the animals. more

Thanks for visiting Food Safety Solutions. See you next week!
  

Bittman Opines on Livestock Antibiotics and the FDA

Kudos to Mark Bittman for addressing the recent FDA withdrawal from plans to regulate the use of antibiotics in livestock feed.  The excerpt below is from the New York Times:

A study earlier this year by a nonprofit research center in Phoenix analyzed 80 brands of beef, pork, chicken and turkey from five cities and found that 47 percent contained staphylococcus aureus, a bacteria that can cause anything from minor skin infections to pneumonia and sepsis, more technically called systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS), and commonly known as blood poisoning — but no matter what you call it, plenty scary. Of those bacteria, 52 percent were resistant to at least three classes of antibiotics. So when you go to the supermarket to buy one of these brands of pre-ground meat products, there’s a roughly 25 percent chance you’ll consume a potentially fatal bacteria that doesn’t respond to commonly prescribed drugs.

Click here for Bittman's full column
Want more? Click here for Food Safety News: FDA Backs off Withdrawing Certain Antibiotoics from Livestock Use

Thank you for visiting Food Safety Solutions and Happy New Year!

Safe Food Greetings

May you find Happiness, Peace, and Safe Food

during this Holiday Season 

and through the Coming Year!

Love, Miss Phage

Intralytix and Lego

Calls started coming in from all across the country. Team leaders representing groups of industrious and clever young scientists had been studying food safety issues and working on designing solutions. Each team of 10 (primary and middle school students) had selected a food safety problem to solve, researched it and put their findings to the test with a robot of their own design.

In their research, they had learned about phages and wanted to use them in their projects to eradicate Listeria, E.coli and Salmonella. Their ideas were impressive - creative and carefully thought out.

The theme of the 2011 First Lego League challenge was to improve the quality of food by finding ways to to prevent food contamination. The FLL is a partnership between FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) and The LEGO Group, to inspire future scientists and engineers.

Congratulations to all the FLL Food Factor challenge teams! Keep up the great thinking, the food industry needs you. 

      

  

 

Inside the Slaughterhouse and Spending a Few Pennies for Safer Meat

 

 

Today, Miss Phage is thinking about: Meat - two recent articles are excerpted below

The Case for Peeking Inside the Slaughterhouse

A new report from the National Research Council (an arm of the National Academy of Sciences) argues that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) should routinely release much of the data that it collects in these plants.
  Currently, the FSIS releases summary data that shows, for instance, how often it finds salmonella contamination in all meat-packing plants. But the NRC says it should go much further, and post online the results of tests at each specific factory. Such data, according to the report, "could yield valuable insights" that would promote safer, healthier practices in the industry.

more

Who Should Pay to Make Ground Beef Safe from E. coli?

 What if it were possible to almost entirely do away with E. coli in ground beef and it would cost only about a penny a burger?

Researchers at Harvard University estimate that American beef consumers are willing to pay 1 cent to 2 cents a pound to reduce the risk of E. coli O157:H7 illnesses. "Common sense plus our paper and many others suggest consumers will pay more for safer food," says James Hammitt, who co-wrote a paper on consumer willingness to pay for food safety in the September edition of the journal Risk Analysis.

more

  
Thank you for visiting Food Safety Solutions. For more information on phage products for your food safety, please leave a message here or visit www.intralytix.com.