…America’s Voice for Safe Food

STOP's Director of Research and Education, Susan Vaughn Grooters Quoted Below

By Stephanie Armour

A public health group is pressing the Obama administration to ban sales of uncooked meat containing drug-resistant salmonella after an outbreak sickened 20 people in seven states.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture now allows sales of unprocessed food with the bacterium because it’s usually killed in cooking. The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington nonprofit, says consumers who may not cook meat properly can’t be responsible for maintaining food safety, noting foodborne outbreaks involving “superbugs” resistant to antibiotics sickened 19,897 and killed 26 between 1973 and 2009.
The center is petitioning the USDA to ban four strains of salmonella, including one type found in ground beef sold by the Hannaford Bros. Co. supermarket chain that were recalled in December after sickening people in the U.S. northeast. Drug- resistant and normal salmonella causes about 1 million illnesses a year in U.S. at a cost of about $365 million, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

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“The time to address this problem is long overdue,” Susan Vaughn Grooters, director of research and education at Chicago- based STOP Foodborne Illness, an advocacy group, said in an e- mail. “How many more cases are needed before someone in our government shows some leadership and acts to protect us?” (our emphasis)

This article continues at: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-08/salmonella-outbreak-spurs-ca...
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