There have been many concerns raised in recent years about the overuse of antibiotics on farms, but the effect such uses have on human health is not fully understood. Researchers at Texas Tech University are now suggesting that airborne dust could be a pathway for antibiotic-resistance bacteria to travel from feedlots to human environments. Scientists…
Study: E. Coli From Feedlots Can Contaminate Produce by Air
New research finds that E. coli O157:H7 can spread more than a tenth of a mile downwind from a cattle feedlot onto nearby produce. In the study, first author Elaine D. Berry of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s U.S. Meat Animal Research Center and her colleagues sampled leafy greens growing in nine plots (three each…
2011 Feedlot Study Finds E. coli Strains in Fecal Pools
The year before USDA’s new groundbreaking non-O157 E. coli policy went into effect, the agency went back to America’s feedlots to find out just how prevalent six new strains were at the source. The 2011 study into the prevalence of Escherichia coli O-Types and Shiga-Toxin genes in fecal samples from feedlots is being published in…
Rounding Up Better Ways to Raise World Beef
In February 2012, a group of industry and environmental groups joined together to form the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (GRSB). According to its website, the GRSB is a global, multi-stakeholder initiative that seeks to advance the sustainable production of beef by addressing issues such as soil, water quality, energy use, animal welfare and nutrition.…
Settlement in CAFO Clean Water Act Case
Environmental groups and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reached a settlement yesterday requiring the agency to propose a rule on greater information gathering on factory farms, otherwise known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). The rule, to be proposed within 12 months, would require the 20,000 or so domestic factory farms to report information like …
How Did E. coli O145 Contaminate Lettuce?
A look at how E. coli O145 could have contaminated romaine lettuce on a farm in Yuma
As state and federal public health officials continue to investigate the E. coli O145 outbreak tied to bagged Freshway Foods romaine lettuce, which has sickened 19 in 3 states, many questions remain.
The supply chain from…
Briefing on Industrial Farming Now Online
On December 17, 2009, the Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming and U.S. Representative Raul M. Grijalva (D-AZ), Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, hosted a briefing on Capitol Hill focused on the public health and sociological effects of industrial animal production on communities.
Friday, Pew posted all of the presentations from…
Feedlots Rife with E. coli, Study Finds
Cattle hides are more likely to be contaminated with E. coli at the feedlot than at the slaughterhouse and transport and lairage do not increase the number or isolation rate of E. coli O157 according to a recent study.
The study, conducted by Australian researchers and published in Foodborne Pathogens and Disease, conflicts with …