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Troubling news about tainted pork

Pork sold in most supermarkets may be tainted with dangerous, antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The nonprofit organization Consumer Reports tested nearly 200 supermarket pork samples and found that 69 percent harbored the bacterium Yersinia enterocolitica, which causes food poisoning and is especially likely to infect children. Some 11 percent of the samples contained enterococci—a sign of fecal contamination—and between 3 and 7 percent hosted salmonella, staph, or listeria, all of which can cause serious illness. Researchers were particularly troubled that 90 percent of the bacteria found in pork were resistant to at least one antibiotic; three of the samples had bacteria that were resistant to five antibiotics. Farmers routinely feed low levels of antibiotics to their livestock to make them plumper and keep them healthy, but “this practice promotes the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which are a major public-health concern,” says study author Urvashi Rangan. One in five pork samples also showed traces of ractopamine, a drug that farmers use to make hogs leaner but that hasn’t been approved for use in humans. Thoroughly cooking pork to at least 145 degrees will kill bacteria, but “anything that touches raw meat” could be contaminated and “should be washed with hot, soapy water,” Rangan says. Consumers can also buy organic pork at specialty stores such as Whole Foods, or any pork that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has classified as free of antibiotics.

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