Thursday March 19 7:22 AM EST
USDA to Unveil Salmonella Fighting Product
By Barbara Hagenbaugh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Agriculture will announce Thursday approval of a product to fight salmonella in chickens, industry and government sources said.
"Preempt," a culture of "good bacteria" to fight salmonella, a bacteria that sickens millions of people in the United States each year, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration Friday for chickens, the sources told Reuters Wednesday.
An FDA official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed its approval and said it was one of many products studied by the government to reduce food-borne illnesses. Food safety experts said that the new Preempt spray was not a complete answer to salmonella, which can contaminate food at any point during processing, selling and preparation.
MS BioScience, a Dundee, Illinois, company developed the culture in conjunction with USDA scientists and will market Preempt. Company spokeswoman Elizabeth Curwen said it expects it to be approved later for cows, turkeys and other animals.
The company said the product "significantly reduces or eliminates salmonella" and added that statistical data will be presented by the USDA and MS BioScience Thursday.
USDA Secretary Dan Glickman will announce the FDA approval of Preempt at a National Press Club luncheon. A USDA spokesman declined to comment on the contents of his speech.
Salmonella is reported to sicken up to 4 million people in the United States every year and kills up to 2,000 people. Not all salmonella illnesses are linked to poultry.
Illnesses caused by food contaminated with salmonella, E.coli or other bacteria cause an estimated $300 million in U.S. economic losses annually.
The Preempt culture is sprayed onto chicks in a liquid mist when the chicks are less than one day old and is ingested when the chicks pick at their feathers with their beaks.
The culture colonizes in the gastrointestinal tract of the chicks and prevents colonization of salmonella bacteria, similar to the way a vaccine works, Curwen said.
Chickens are most susceptible to salmonella when they are young chicks, she said.
"What we are doing with Preempt is essentially replacing the mother hen," Dr. John DeLoach, leader of the team that developed the culture, said in a statement prepared for release Thursday.
"Before the advent of large, modern poultry-raising operations, hens would pass their beneficial microbes directly to their chicks in the first few days after hatching," he said. "Today, the chick never sees the hen and is highly susceptible to pathogens like salmonella until the GI (gastrointestinal) tract matures."
Curwen said FDA approval of Preempt eliminates the need for antibiotics, which many scientists think could eventually be ineffective as bacteria resistant to antibiotics will probably develop.
Caroline Smith DeWaal, head of food safety for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said she welcomed Preempt's approval and it was a first step in preventing food-borne illnesses.
"This is a very positive development because it takes food safety back to the farm," DeWaal said. She added however that the biggest hurdle would be in getting farmers to use Preempt on newborn chicks.
"Producers have been reluctant to step up to the plate in addressing food safety problems," she said.
The Clinton Administration has been pressing recently for expanded authority for the USDA to order recalls, to send FDA food inspectors abroad to keep tainted produce out of the country and other steps to safeguard the U.S. food supply. |
