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ARS Home » Plains Area » Clay Center, Nebraska » U.S. Meat Animal Research Center » Meat Safety and Quality » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #361988
Research Project: Mitigation Approaches for Foodborne Pathogens in Cattle and Swine for Use During Production and Processing

Location: Meat Safety and Quality

Title: No change in risk for antibiotic-resistant Salmonellosis from beef, United States, 2002-2010

Author
item COSTARD, SOLENNE - Epix Analytics
item POUZOU, JANE - Epix Analytics
item BELK, K - Colorado State University
item MORLEY, P - Texas A&M University
item Schmidt, John
item Wheeler, Tommy
item Arthur, Terrance
item ZAGMUTT, FRANCISCO - Epix Analytics

Submitted to: Emerging Infectious Diseases
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/5/2020
Publication Date: 9/1/2020
Citation: Costard, S., Pouzou, J., Belk, K.E., Morley, P.S., Schmidt, J.W., Wheeler, T.L., Arthur, T.M., Zagmutt, F. 2020. No change in risk for antibiotic-resistant Salmonellosis from beef, United States, 2002-2010. Emerging Infectious Diseases. 26(9):2108-2117. https://doi.org/10.3201/eid2609.190922.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3201/eid2609.190922

Interpretive Summary: Antibiotic use during food-animal production is theorized to contribute significantly to antibiotic resistant human infections. However, few risk assessments have studied the contributions of U.S. beef production. In this study, nine years of nationally representative data was used to assess the relationships between antibiotic uses in beef production, antibiotic resistant Salmonella in beef, and antibiotic resistant Salmonella from human infections. This relationship data was used to estimate the change in human infections complicated by antibiotic resistant Salmonella attributed to beef if less or no antibiotics were used during U.S. beef production. These analyses indicate that reducing antibiotic use during U.S. beef production is unlikely to reduce the occurrence of in human infections complicated by antibiotic resistant Salmonella attributed to beef.

Technical Abstract: Restricting antibiotic use in food production animals is a target for reducing antimicrobial drug–resistant infections in humans. We used US surveillance data to estimate the probability of antibiotic-resistant nontyphoidal salmonellosis per meal made with beef during 2002–2010. Applying data for nontyphoidal Salmonella in raised-without antibiotics cattle, we tested the effect of removing antibiotic use from all beef cattle production. We found an average of 1.2 (95% credible interval 0.6–4.2) antibiotic-resistant nontyphoidal salmonellosis cases per 1 million beef meals made with beef initially contaminated with antibiotic- resistant nontyphoidal Salmonella at slaughter or retail and 0.031 (95% credible interval 0.00018–0.14) cases per 1 million meals irrespective of beef contamination status. Neither outcome showed sustained change except for increases in 2003 and 2009 (>98% confidence) when larger or more outbreaks occurred. Switching all beef production to a raised-without-antibiotics system may not have a significant effect on antibiotic-resistant nontyphoidal salmonellosis (94.3% confidence).