90% of meat in US ‘harbours E. coli’

AMERICAN meat and poultry is routinely contaminated with E.coli and salmonella, a public health expert has claimed.

Researchers found that 90 per cent of turkey products, 80 per cent of chicken, 70 per cent of beef and 60 per cent of pork on US shelves show unacceptable levels of E. coli, indicating contact with faeces.

Meanwhile, 13 per cent of American pork on sale is contaminated with salmonella – six times higher than in the UK – according to Dr

Lance Price, of George Washington University.

Dr Price, whose findings are revealed in a Channel 4 Dispatches i nvestigation, also found t hat almost half the samples proved resistant to at least one of America’s six most common antibiotics.

‘It’s a real risk in human health because if somebody has a serious infection with one of these pathogens, and it’s resistant to the antibiotics that the doctor would use to treat them, then they could die,’ he told the programme.

‘We have unequivocal, clear evidence that antibiotic use in animals leads to antibiotic-resistant infections in people.’

American livestock are treated with five times more antibiotics per pound than in the UK and six of the antibiotics used by farmers are classified by the World Health Organisation as ‘critically important’ to human medicine.

Dr Price fears that their overuse could have serious repercussions on public health as the bacteria resistance to antibiotics is rising.

‘ When you raise animals in a crowded, unsanitary condition, or give them feed they’re not evolved to eat, they get diseases,’ he said.

‘ Instead of changing the way we’re producing the animals, we give them antibiotics.’

Dirty Secrets of American Food: Coming To A Supermarket Near You? is on Channel 4 at 8pm tomorrow