At a government-sponsored conference on food safety, federal officials said improving farming practices was the most promising way to prevent foodborne illnesses. An estimated 76 million Americans suffer a foodborne illness each year, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Scientists say E. coli first appeared in cattle in the late 1970s but now shows up in entire herds. It was found in 28 percent of the cattle entering Midwest slaughterhouses last summer. The bacteria kill an estimated 60 Americans each year and sicken an estimated 73,000 more, mostly children or the elderly.
Infected cattle are impossible for farmers and ranchers to detect.
There's nothing to see. But research is under way on vaccines that would prevent cattle from carrying the bacteria, on feed additives that would eliminate it from the animals, and new methods of composting manure so it can be used as fertilizer without contaminating crops or ground water. FDA approval of new anti-E. coli products would likely take years, said Laegreid. Pathogens are inherently more difficult to control in cattle than in hogs or chickens because cattle are still raised on the range rather than on farms in closely confined conditions, he said. A disease-causing worm, trichinae, was virtually eliminated from hogs when farmers quit feeding garbage to them.