While the General Accounting Office advises the government to work together to figure out ways to safely use antibiotics in agriculture, new information about drug-resistant bacteria continues to be reported. The report on the outbreaks in California is the first in the United States to link the pathogen to a food source - raw cow's milk. An editorial accompanying these reports focuses on the inherent risks of consuming raw milk.
Milk is, meat is, poultry is, fruits and vegetables are.
Although better methods can be and are being developed to reduce the risk and degree of microbial contamination, some level of contamination is likely to remain the rule, not the exception. Raw milk and raw-milk products will continue to cause morbidity and mortality until people stop consuming them. The next day an article in the New England Journal of Medicine reported on quinolone-resistant Campylobacter jejuni infections in Minnesota. The increase is largely due to infections acquired during foreign travel, however the number of infections acquired domestically has also increased. The report links an increase in these infections from 1992 to 1998 to the licensing of fluoroquinolones for use in poultry production in the U.S. in 1995.