Stewardship / Resistance Scan for Sep 12, 2019
Chick-fil-A antibiotic-free
; Resistant E coli in sewage
Filed Under:
Antimicrobial Stewardship
; E coli
Chick-fil-A reached goal of antibiotic-free chicken in all its restaurants
Chick-fil-A today announced it has reached its goal of serving only chicken raised without the routine use of antibiotics, an ambition it set in 2014, according to a company news release.
Chick-fil-A reached its "no antibiotics ever" milestone in May and will be touting the achievement on packaging in its restaurants next month. Matt Abercrombie, director of menu and packaging for the company, said, "Our goal was to pursue the highest standard and partner with the USDA [US Department of Agriculture] to verify it." He added, "We worked with our suppliers to convert our chicken supply to No Antibiotics Ever, which was an industry-changing move, as the supply of No Antibiotics Ever chicken previously did not exist to match our scale."
Other restaurant chains that have reached the same milestone are Chipotle, Panera, McDonald's, Subway, and KFC, according to a blog post today by Avinash Kar and Lena Brook with the New York City?based Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
The pair said, "This reflects a stunning antibiotics success story that has unfolded across the U.S. chicken industry in the last decade," pointing to the fact that 92% of US chicken sold last year was produced without the use of medically important antibiotics.
Sep 12 Chick-fil-A news release
Sep 12 NRDC blog post
Study finds similar antibiotic resistance rates in sewage, clinical samples
A study today in Eurosurveillance suggests analysis of sewage samples has the potential to be used for population-level surveillance of antibiotic resistance, complementing current monitoring systems and providing clinically relevant data for countries where clinical surveillance is lacking.
In the study, a team of Swedish researchers collected hospital and municipal sewage on eight and six occasions, respectively, in 2016, then analyzed 1,252 Escherichia coli isolates from the samples for resistance to eight different antibiotics. The annual mean resistance rates measured in hospital sewage were higher than in the municipal sewage for seven of the eight antibiotics, and a higher prevalence of extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) producers was also observed in the hospital sewage. In addition, E coli showing resistance to at least one of the antibiotics were twice as prevalent in the hospital sewage (36.6% vs 17.9%), and 10 of the 11 most resistant isolates were found in the hospital sewage.
Comparison of the resistance rates in the hospital and municipal sewage isolates showed a strong correlation with resistance rates in corresponding clinical isolates from hospital patients and from primary care urine samples, with the stronger correlation observed between resistances rate in hospital sewage and hospital clinical isolates (r? = 0.95 and 0.89 for urine and blood samples, respectively) and a slightly weaker correlation between resistance rates in municipal sewage and primary care isolates (r? = 0.82). The resistance rates in isolates from hospital sewage were overall close to those observed in hospital patient isolates, while the resistance rates from municipal sewage were about half of those measured in primary care isolates.
"In conclusion, this study indicates that resistance data obtained from sewage samples reflects well the resistance situation in the studied populations. However, in order to use sewage monitoring to predict the clinical situation in other populations, including those for which such data are missing, further calibration is needed," the authors of the study write. "This calibration could be extended from E coli to additional important pathogens that can be present in faeces (such as Klebsiella pneumoniae and Salmonella enterica) and possibly from the study of human populations to husbandry animals."
Sep 12 Eurosurveill study
Chick-fil-A antibiotic-free
; Resistant E coli in sewage
Filed Under:
Antimicrobial Stewardship
; E coli
Chick-fil-A reached goal of antibiotic-free chicken in all its restaurants
Chick-fil-A today announced it has reached its goal of serving only chicken raised without the routine use of antibiotics, an ambition it set in 2014, according to a company news release.
Chick-fil-A reached its "no antibiotics ever" milestone in May and will be touting the achievement on packaging in its restaurants next month. Matt Abercrombie, director of menu and packaging for the company, said, "Our goal was to pursue the highest standard and partner with the USDA [US Department of Agriculture] to verify it." He added, "We worked with our suppliers to convert our chicken supply to No Antibiotics Ever, which was an industry-changing move, as the supply of No Antibiotics Ever chicken previously did not exist to match our scale."
Other restaurant chains that have reached the same milestone are Chipotle, Panera, McDonald's, Subway, and KFC, according to a blog post today by Avinash Kar and Lena Brook with the New York City?based Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
The pair said, "This reflects a stunning antibiotics success story that has unfolded across the U.S. chicken industry in the last decade," pointing to the fact that 92% of US chicken sold last year was produced without the use of medically important antibiotics.
Sep 12 Chick-fil-A news release
Sep 12 NRDC blog post
Study finds similar antibiotic resistance rates in sewage, clinical samples
A study today in Eurosurveillance suggests analysis of sewage samples has the potential to be used for population-level surveillance of antibiotic resistance, complementing current monitoring systems and providing clinically relevant data for countries where clinical surveillance is lacking.
In the study, a team of Swedish researchers collected hospital and municipal sewage on eight and six occasions, respectively, in 2016, then analyzed 1,252 Escherichia coli isolates from the samples for resistance to eight different antibiotics. The annual mean resistance rates measured in hospital sewage were higher than in the municipal sewage for seven of the eight antibiotics, and a higher prevalence of extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) producers was also observed in the hospital sewage. In addition, E coli showing resistance to at least one of the antibiotics were twice as prevalent in the hospital sewage (36.6% vs 17.9%), and 10 of the 11 most resistant isolates were found in the hospital sewage.
Comparison of the resistance rates in the hospital and municipal sewage isolates showed a strong correlation with resistance rates in corresponding clinical isolates from hospital patients and from primary care urine samples, with the stronger correlation observed between resistances rate in hospital sewage and hospital clinical isolates (r? = 0.95 and 0.89 for urine and blood samples, respectively) and a slightly weaker correlation between resistance rates in municipal sewage and primary care isolates (r? = 0.82). The resistance rates in isolates from hospital sewage were overall close to those observed in hospital patient isolates, while the resistance rates from municipal sewage were about half of those measured in primary care isolates.
"In conclusion, this study indicates that resistance data obtained from sewage samples reflects well the resistance situation in the studied populations. However, in order to use sewage monitoring to predict the clinical situation in other populations, including those for which such data are missing, further calibration is needed," the authors of the study write. "This calibration could be extended from E coli to additional important pathogens that can be present in faeces (such as Klebsiella pneumoniae and Salmonella enterica) and possibly from the study of human populations to husbandry animals."
Sep 12 Eurosurveill study