of the Canadian Press reports that Canadian researchers have found antibiotic-resistant Staph in pork products in available at Canadian retail stores:
[The discovery] raises questions about how the contamination occurred, how frequently it happens and whether it has implications for human health.
Just under 10 per cent of sampled pork chops and ground pork recently purchased in four provinces tested positive for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA, lead researcher Dr. Scott Weese reported Wednesday in a presentation to the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases in Atlanta.
To date Weese’s team has tested 212 meat samples bought in four different provinces. Most were pork chops but the group also tested a few pork shoulder roasts and some ground pork.
None of the pork roasts carried the bacteria but an equal percentage of pork chops and ground pork did. The rates of positive MRSA tests ranged from zero per cent in one province to 33 per cent in another. Weese didn’t want to name the provinces.
What is most interesting to me are Weese’s comments about what food handlers actually do:
"If they do what they’re supposed to do in terms of meat handling, then it should be perfectly safe. But do people do that is the question?"
What food handlers do (whether in the restaurant, packing house, slaughter house or home) is an area of uncertainty, and there isn’t a whole lot of data around it. We’ve been conducting some research of food handler practices using observation, (T6-12, An Exploratory Study of Food-handling Practices at Church Dinners in Canada was presented at IAFP in 2007) and will be presenting some of our newest findings this summer at IAFP in Columbus, OH.