Once again, San Francisco is poised to become the first city in the nation to take a legislative stand on a controversial topic. Its Board of Supervisors is set to vote tomorrow on an ordinance to require disclosure about the use of antibiotics by meat and poultry producers.
The proposed
Continue Reading Antibiotic disclosure — another first for San Francisco?
Every year more than 400,000 people in America get sick from infections caused by antibiotic-resistant foodborne bacteria, which cause more serious illnesses than other pathogens found in food.
People infected by antibiotic-resistant foodborne bacteria can develop symptoms that are harder treat and more severe, leading to more hospitalizations and deaths
Continue Reading Antibiotic resistance, the food industry and animal agriculture
Editor’s note: CIDRAP News originally published this report by Chris Dall on Dec. 15, 2016.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week published new estimates of the incidence of antibiotic-resistant Salmonella infections in the United States, putting the burden at about 6,200 cases annually.
In a report in
Continue Reading Half of antibiotic resistant Salmonella cases from 4 serotypes
Cambridge University researchers have found antibiotic-resistant E. coli on 24 percent of chicken samples tested from the seven largest supermarkets in the U.K. That contamination level is four times higher than results from a similar study done last year. 
The researchers tested 189 U.K.-sourced pork and poultry samples from the
Continue Reading Tests find E. coli on 24 percent of chicken from seven UK supermarkets
A new federal government report on antibiotic resistance in foodborne pathogens reveals that multidrug resistance in a common Salmonella serotype remains above 40 percent and that this resistance more than doubled between 2011 and 2014. According to the “NARMS 2014 Human Isolates Surveillance Report,” this level of resistance
Continue Reading NARMS reports antibiotic resistance in Salmonella remains high
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is making $6 million available for research into antimicrobial resistance and has set an Aug. 3 deadline for grant proposals. The funding comes from the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative authorized by the 2014 Farm Bill and is administered by USDA’s National Institute
Continue Reading USDA offers $6 million for antimicrobial resistance research
Headlines out of the European Union this week warned that superbug versions of foodborne pathogens have become more resistant to antibiotics than was previously thought. 
Campylobacter is the most commonly reported cause of food poisoning in the EU and is increasingly able to survive ciprofloxacin, an antibiotic commonly used against
Continue Reading Beach Beat: Superbugs and science projects
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is providing grants totaling more than $30 million to fund 80 research projects aimed at improving food safety, reducing antibiotic resistance in food and increasing the resilience of plants. 
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the grant awards Wednesday, also saying that President Obama’s 2017 budget
Continue Reading USDA, Obama commit to food safety research
The increasing global attention to the threat of antibiotic resistance has spurred research and development of antimicrobial alternatives. Once such alternative is bacteriophages. Bacteriophages are viruses that infect and kill bacteria. There are thousands of different types and they are so abundant in the environment – an estimated 1030
Continue Reading Bacteriophages: An Old Antibiotic Alternative Becomes New Again
It’s difficult to summarize what happened on the animal antibiotics front this year. There were lots of pledges, lots of discussions and lots of reports, but not very many actions. Still, we still wanted to recap what happened in the 2015 regarding animal antibiotics. The Centers for Disease Control and
Continue Reading 2015 in Review: Animal Antibiotics
