Drug-resistant bacteria found in half of U.S. meat

A new study finds that much of meat and poultry sold in supermarkets is contaminated with drug-resistant staph bacteria.

Researchers bought beef, chicken, pork, and turkey in five U.S. cities and found that nearly half of the meat sampled -- 47 percent -- contained drug resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus.

The "staph" bacteria is linked to a range of health problems from rashes and respiratory ailments to potentially fatal illnesses such as sepsis and endocarditis. Due to overexposure, staph bacteria have grown resistant to an ever-widening range of the antibiotic drugs used to fight them; Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA has become a deadly scourge in U.S. hospitals.

But there is perhaps no greater contributor to the rise of drug-resistant staphs than the meat industry, where animals are preemptively treated with a range of antibiotics.

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