USDA lab focuses on deadly E. Coli
Sat, 26 Jan 2008 08:46:34 GMTBy JOSH FUNK, AP Business Writer
CLAY CENTER, Neb. - Cattle wander among earth-covered bunkers that dot the landscape just west of this tiny rural town. The bunkers are remnants of a Naval ammunition depot that produced bombs during World War II. The depot is now an animal research center where government scientists are working to unlock secrets contained in the genetic makeup of the cattle.
Their focus: the E. coli 0157:H7 bacteria, which can kill if it reaches the dinner table.
"Our purpose is to save little kids' lives," said Mohammad Koohmaraie, director of the center.
The scientists at the Roman L. Hruska U.S. Meat Animal Research Center say they still don't know why the number of beef recalls soared in 2007 or why E. coli contamination appeared to be rising.
"What we try to do is increase our understanding as much as possible about the bug," Koohmaraie said.
The lab has its own feedlot and a herd of about 6,500 cows that are used for genetic research.
In 2007, more than 30 million pounds of ground beef were pulled off the market in 20 recalls because of possible E. coli contamination. That included the second-largest recall in U.S. history, which put Topps Meat Co. out of business.
At least 67 sicknesses were linked to last year's beef recalls. No deaths were reported. In 2006, there were just eight beef recalls and no reported illnesses.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that E. coli sickens about 73,000 people and kills 61 each year in the United States. Most of the deaths are people with weak immune systems such as the elderly or very young.
The bacteria was discovered in the late 1970s and is present in the intestines of most cattle. It also can be found in deer, goats and sheep. It doesn't cause problems for the livestock, but the E. coli 0157:H7 variant can cause severe illness in humans.
Symptoms of E. coli infection include stomach cramps and diarrhea that may turn bloody within one to three days.
The large scope of the research being conducted at the Meat Animal Research Center sets its work apart from research at universities and other labs in the USDA's Agricultural Research Service.
"The uniqueness of what we do is in the sample size," Koohmaraie said. "We really don't speak unless we have confidence in the data. A bug like E. coli 0157:h7 is really problematic if you don't design the experiment properly."
One of the lab's current projects will test whether feeding cattle distiller's grain — a byproduct of making the gasoline additive ethanol — has any effect on the level of E. coli and the quality of meat produced.
The Nebraska Corn Board suggested the distiller's grain research last spring, and the lab agreed because more and more feedlots are using the ethanol byproduct, Koohmaraie said.
The research involves 600 cattle. Half are being fed a traditional grain feed and half are being fed distiller's grain. The research will wrap up in June after the cattle have been sold for slaughter and samples of their carcasses have been collected.
Smaller studies already suggest a link between distillers grain and high levels of the bacteria. For instance, researchers at Kansas State University said last fall they found that cattle fed distiller's grain are twice as likely to carry E. coli 0157:H7.
The meat industry significantly increased its efforts to control E. coli after the 1993 outbreak in which four children died and hundreds of people became ill after eating undercooked hamburgers from Jack in the Box restaurants.
The Clay Center lab, which is about 120 miles southwest of Omaha, didn't really have much of a food safety research program until the Jack in the Box outbreak, Koohmaraie said. After that, Congress and the USDA made it a priority to learn more about E. coli and other pathogens.
A great deal of research had already been done on E. coli by then, but the Clay Center lab made an important discovery: E. coli was getting into meat processing plants on the hides of cattle as well as inside the animals' intestines.
That work contributed to the development of systems to wash the hides of cattle and the carcasses with either hot water or chemical solutions as they enter the processing plants.
The lab determined which solutions work best and how washing systems should be designed.
Warren Mirtsching, who oversees food safety for JBS Swift & Co, said the lab showed how valuable a hide washing system can be and that meat packing plants didn't have to spend millions to install an effective system.
"I think they perform a very special niche," Mirtsching said. "They are the validator."
___
On the Net:
USDA Agricultural Research Service: http://ars.usda.gov
Roman L. Hruska U.S. Meat Animal Research Center: http://nmaonline.org
Beef Industry Food Safety Council: http://www.bifsco.org
Study The Pill protects against cancer
Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:26:16 GMTBy MARIA CHENG, AP Medical Writer
LONDON - Women on the birth control pill are protected from ovarian cancer, even decades after they stop taking it, scientists said. British researchers found that women taking the pill for 15 years halved their chances of developing ovarian cancer, and that the risk remained low more than 30 years later, though protection weakened over time. The findings were published Friday in The Lancet.
"Not only does the pill prevent pregnancy, but in the long term, you actually get less cancer as well," said Valerie Beral, the study's lead author and director of the Cancer Research UK Epidemiology Unit at Oxford University. "It's a nice bonus." The study was paid for by Cancer Research UK and Britain's Medical Research Council.
Beral and colleagues analyzed data from 45 studies worldwide, covering 23,257 women with ovarian cancer, of whom 31 percent were on the pill. They also looked at 87,303 women without ovarian cancer, of whom 37 percent were on the pill.
In both groups, the women on the pill took it for about five years. The researchers found that in rich countries, women taking oral contraceptives for a decade were less likely to develop ovarian cancer. Without the pill, about 12 women per 1,000 are expected to get ovarian cancer before age 75. But that figure dropped to 8 women per 1,000 in those on the pill.
The experts estimated that use of the pill so far has prevented about 200,000 cases of ovarian cancer and 100,000 deaths from the disease. Based on current levels of oral contraceptive usage, they guessed that 30,000 cases could be avoided every year.
"To be able to save thousands of women's lives every year by using contraceptives is remarkable," said Dr. Beth Karlan, director of the Women's Cancer Research Institute at Cedars Sinai in California and an official with the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Karlan was not connected to the Lancet study.
In the West, ovarian cancer is one of the most common types of cancer in women. Older women are most at risk and survival rates are generally poor.
While the pill protects against ovarian cancer, it slightly increases the chances of breast and cervical cancer. But those risks disappear after women stop taking oral contraceptives. And the pill also provides long-term protection against endometrial cancer, which affects the lining of the uterus.
Scientists don't know why the pill increases some cancer risks while decreasing others. "It may have something to do with the hormones in the contraceptives," said Dr. Debbie Saslow, director of breast and gynecologic cancer at the American Cancer Society. "Hormones such as estrogen can be growth-promoting in some body parts and have the opposite effect in other body parts," she said.
But because there is no early test for ovarian cancer, which is often diagnosed late with a bad prognosis, doctors say that the pill's protective effects against ovarian cancer outweigh the small increased risks of breast and cervical cancer — unless women already have a history of those cancers.
"This is the first medication that we know of to cut ovarian cancer risk," Beral said. Other measures to protect against ovarian cancer are probably not things women would do unless they had more compelling reasons: having children or getting their tubes tied.
Still, most doctors do not suggest that women take the pill exclusively for its anticancer properties. The pill comes with side effects including risks of blood clots, migraines, and high blood pressure. Those risks are particularly elevated in women in their late 30s and in smokers.
In an editorial in The Lancet, experts called for better access to oral contraceptives, arguing that the drugs should now be available over the counter.
As the pill becomes more common in developing countries, experts estimate that ovarian cancer incidence will fall worldwide. In 2002, the United Nations estimated that 120 million women globally were on the pill, two-thirds of whom were in developing countries.
