From: LARRY KLAES (ljk4_at_msn.com)
Date: Sat Jul 17 2004 - 08:15:08 PDT
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From: cunews_at_cornell.edu<mailto:cunews_at_cornell.edu>
To: CUNEWS-AG-L_at_cornell.edu<mailto:CUNEWS-AG-L_at_cornell.edu> ; CUNEWS-HEALTH-L_at_cornell.edu<mailto:CUNEWS-HEALTH-L_at_cornell.edu> ; CUNEWS-SCIENCE-L_at_cornell.edu<mailto:CUNEWS-SCIENCE-L_at_cornell.edu>
Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2004 3:59 PM
Subject: Cornell News: Listeria Persists
Once discovered, deadly Listeria can continue to contaminate food in
stores and plants for a year or longer, CU researchers find
FOR RELEASE: July 15, 2004
Contact: Blaine P. Friedlander Jr.
Office: 607-255-3290
E-mail: bpf2_at_cornell.edu<mailto:bpf2_at_cornell.edu>
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Despite the efforts of food retailers and
food-processing plant managers to maintain a clean, safe environment,
strains of the deadly pathogen Listeria monocytogenes can persist for
up to a year or longer, according to Cornell University food
scientists in the latest issue of Journal of Food Protection (July
2004).
"This is disturbing because this points the finger at retail stores
and some processors as a continuing source of food contamination,"
says Brian D. Sauders, a Cornell doctoral candidate in food science,
who worked on the study with Martin Wiedmann, D.V.M., Cornell
assistant professor of food science.
Sauders and Wiedmann examined specific strains of L. monocytogenes
that had been found in 125 foods in 50 retail food stores and seven
food-processing plants in New York state examined by inspectors of
the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets. The
inspectors found the bacteria during routine surveys, sanitary
inspections and as a result of consumer complaints between 1997 and
2002.
Listeria can cause listeriosis, a deadly disease that primarily
affects pregnant women, newborn children, and adults with weakened
immune systems. Each year in the United States about 2,500 people are
infected, of which one-fifth die. Pasteurization and cooking kill
the bacterium.
The foods in which Listeria was found included ready-to-eat
delicatessen foods like ham, beef bologna, chicken, pastrami, roast
beef and smoked fish. It also was found in hummus, imitation crab,
cheeses and in foods requiring cooking before consumption, such as
hot dogs and raw foods including beef, ground chuck, turkey, lobster
tails and shrimp.
The bacterium was found directly on food in 47 of 50 retail food
stores, including 20 food stores where the bacterium was found on
several foods. When the 50 stores were re-inspected weeks, months or
even a year later, about 34 percent had persistence of the same
strains of Listeria. Of the seven food-processing plants where
Listeria was found, three had persistent strains of the bacterium.
Wiedmann explains that food retailers have a harder time controlling
for Listeria than do food processors. Food processors can control
for people entering the plant, while retailers cannot always control
the pathogens introduced by customers and employees. "Listeria is a
very hardy organism. Even if you think you're doing a good job of
cleaning and getting rid of Listeria, it is likely to return. Normal
cleaning and even super cleaning does not always get rid of it. It's
a tribute to Listeria's ability to survive," says Wiedmann.
The study is intended to help state health departments track the
origins of listeriosis. "While our understanding of the ecology of
[Listeria] has clearly improved over the last decade, considerable
gaps still exist in our understanding of the transmission of human
listeriosis. For example, our knowledge of the contributions of food
contamination with Listeria at retail, at restaurants, and at home is
extremely limited," writes Sauders in the study.
In addition to Sauders and Wiedmann, the article (titled
"Distribution of Listeria monocytogenes Molecular Subtypes Among
Human and Food Isolates from New York State Shows Persistence of
Human Disease-Associated Listeria monocytogenes Strains in Retail
Environments") was authored by Kurt Mangione, Curtis Vincent, Jon
Schermerhorn and Claudette M. Farchione of the New York State
Department of Agriculture and Markets; Nellie B. Dumas and Dianna
Bopp of the New York State Department of Health; Laura Kornstein of
the New York City Department of Health; and Esther Fortes and Katy
Windham of Cornell. Funding for the research came from the U.S.
Department of Agriculture and the National Institutes of Health.
-30-
The web version of this release may be found at
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