The beef industry has been slow to adopt an E. coli vaccine that could keep people from getting sick.

Meat companies have been trying to clean up their E. coli problem. Infections are down 30 percent from the late 90s. Still, most E. coli outbreaks are from beef.

An E. coli vaccine has been on the market for years that could reduce the risk of getting sick. It’s not a vaccine for people, it’s a vaccine for cows. But not many cows are getting it.

“I’m not aware of anybody who’s currently giving the vaccine,” said Galen Erickson, a feedlot specialist at the University of Nebraska Lincoln.

There are two vaccines. One is sold in the U.S. by Zoetis, and has been around about 5 years. There’s also a Canadian vaccine from a company called Bioniche (now Telesta Therapeutics).

Zoetis would not release sales information for their U.S. vaccine, but a 2011 survey by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found only 2.4 percent of feedlots over 1,000 head of cattle used the vaccine.

Neither vaccine has had many takers even though field trials have been promising. Galen Erickson was part of a group that studied the vaccine’s effectiveness.

“For sure, the vaccine that we worked with, which is Bioniche’s vaccine, is very effective with a 60 percent reduction,” Erickson said. “That’s certainly conclusive that it works.”

Erickson says feedlots want to cut E. coli. Some use an anti-microbial feed additive to reduce E. coli numbers. But the vaccines are more effective and Erickson says cattle feeders would use a vaccine if they could afford it.

E. coli vaccines cost $8 – $15 dollars per cow. That may not seem like much, but over time that could swallow up a feedlot’s profits.

“Any time you add even what look like small costs per head, it very quickly takes a sizable chunk out of their profitability,” said Ted Schroeder, an agricultural economist at Kansas State University who recently studied the economics of the E. coli vaccine.

“The challenge is, I don’t know that anyone knows how much a probability reduction you can get in those recall events, and/or their size, and/or their magnitude by just vaccinating,” Schroeder said. “But it’s on all (the meat packers’) radar screens.”