FDA approves viruses as food additive
Bacteriophages meant to kill harmful bacteria on lunch meats
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A mix of bacteria-killing viruses can be safely sprayed on cold cuts, hot dogs and sausages to combat common microbes that kill hundreds of people a year, federal health officials said Friday in granting the first-ever approval of viruses as a food additive.
The combination of six viruses is designed to be sprayed on ready-to-eat meat and poultry products, including sliced ham and turkey, said John Vazzana, president and chief executive officer of manufacturer Intralytix Inc.
The special viruses, called bacteriophages, are meant to kill strains of the Listeria monocytogenes bacterium, the Food and Drug Administration said in declaring it safe to use on ready-to-eat meats prior to their packaging.
The viruses are the first to win FDA approval for use as a food additive, said Andrew Zajac, of the regulatory agency's office of food additive safety.
The bacterium the viruses target can cause a serious infection called listeriosis, primarily in pregnant women, newborns and adults with weakened immune systems. In the United States, an estimated 2,500 people become seriously ill with listeriosis each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of those, 500 die.
Luncheon meats are particularly vulnerable to Listeria since once purchased they typically aren't cooked or reheated, which can kill harmful bacteria like Listeria, Zajac said.
The preparation of bacteriophages -- the name is Greek for "bacteria-eater" -- attacks only strains of the Listeria bacterium and not human or plant cells, the FDA said.
"As long as it used in accordance with the regulations, we have concluded it's safe," Zajac said. People normally come into contact with phages through food, water and the environment, and they are found in our digestive tracts, the FDA said.
Consumers won't be aware that meat and poultry products have been treated with the spray, Zajac added. The Department of Agriculture will regulate the actual use of the product.
The viruses are grown in a preparation of the very bacteria they kill, and then purified. The FDA had concerns that the virus preparation potentially could contain toxic residues associated with the bacteria. However, testing did not reveal the presence of such residues, which in small quantities likely wouldn't cause health problems anyway, the FDA said.
"The FDA is applying one of the toughest food-safety standards which they have to find this is safe," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group. "They couldn't approve this product if they had questions about its safety."
Intralytix, based in Baltimore, first petitioned the FDA in 2002 to allow the viruses to be used as a food additive. It has since licensed the product to a multinational company, which intends to market it worldwide, said Intralytix president Vazzana. He declined to name the company but said he expected it to announce its plans within weeks or months.
Intralytix also plans to seek FDA approval for another bacteriophage product to kill E. coli bacteria on beef before it is ground, Vazzana said.
Scientists have long studied bacteriophages as a bacteria-fighting alternative to antibiotics.
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We're already doing it in pond culture to outcompete other bacteria and nuisance weeds. However results are not always conclusive.
Cecil,
whens the last time you ate pond culture ?
they already have growth hormones in our milk, pesticides and preservatives and all kinds of other chemicals and crap in our water.
now they want to put viruses in our food to help do what people are to stupid to do for themselves.
can anybody say CANCER...or how many other diseases will this lead to in the future or how will it affect children in the womb...
BIRTH DEFECTS..the article didnt say anything about studies.
since the government said its okay..i guess we will be fine, they wouldnt lie to us would they.
if the meat processors would keep their plants clean and sterilized, we wouldnt be having this discussion.
It seems like a neat idea, to replace antibiotics, but viruses are notorious for mutating into something else...like HIV and CWD.Also passing from one species to another like swine flu. Remember that one? Seems like a big risk. Oh well, I eat mostly venison and make my own sausage, so I guess I will just worry about good old botulism, salmonella, and gamey bucks. You would think they would have to label it. I would guess some companies will capitalize on this by coming out with "virus free" meat. Just like organic produce and "free ranging" meat that is more expensive. I guess the good old FDA once again knows what is best for us, don't they? (lol)
My immune system can use the target practice.
Gotta get it in shape for the bird flu, ya know!
Just in time to "unite" the country against a common enemy...viruses! You got it Nancy!
Environmentalists Link West Nile Virus to Global Warming
By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
August 19, 2002
(CNSNews.com) - Environmental groups, preparing for next week's Earth Summit in South Africa, say global warming is to blame for the spread of the West Nile Virus, which has killed nine people in the United States.
The green groups also say the U.S. will deserve any "bashing" it receives during the summit, for its failure to take a leadership role in the battle against global warming and other environmental issues.
Chris Horner, an analyst with the Competitive Enterprise Institute and a critic of the environmental groups, said the charges leveled at Thursday's news teleconference demonstrate that the Earth Summit will feature "a lot of blame, a lot of dishonesty, a lot of the litany that the world is going to hell in a hand basket despite evidence to the contrary."
The United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development, or Earth Summit will be held in Johannesburg South Africa from Aug. 26-Sept. 4.
Cecil Corbin-Mark, the program director for the group, West Harlem Environmental Action, said he believes the criticism aimed at the U.S. is "a cry for real leadership."
The rest of the world, Corbin-Mark said, views America as "a big bully" because it is always, "brandishing how much they consume and how much they waste and they use."
Jacob Scherr, director of international programs at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), called the Earth Summit "extraordinarily important" and said it would be "an historic milestone in the 30 years of the global environment movement."
The summit will be the fourth of its kind, involving world leaders and environmentalists, since 1972. But, unlike his father, George H. W. Bush, who attended the last Earth Summit when he was president in 1992, Bush, the son, is not planning to attend. He will send a delegation of administration officials to take his place instead.
Since the last Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992, the ecological health of the planet has continued its decline, Scherr said. Citing overpopulation, climate change, ocean pollution and deforestation, Scherr complained that, "Overall, we are in very, very dire straits."
Other participants in Thursday's teleconference also accused the U.S. of failing to do its part in cleaning up the globe.
Azibuike Akaba, research associate for the group, Communities for Better Environment, said President Bush's absence would be "most notable, given that the U.S. population makes up four percent of the world's population, yet we consume 25 percent of the earth's resources."
"The U.S. government has stepped out of all the international agreements including the ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) Treaty, the International Criminal Court and the Kyoto Protocol," Akaba said. He called on America to "pay its fair share and curb its wasteful habits."
Pinning the Blame for West Nile Virus
Corbin-Mark blamed the spread of the mosquito borne illness, West Nile Virus, and the "northern migration of insect borne tropical diseases" squarely on "increased global warming."
"The presence of West Nile Virus in northern Manhattan and communities in Louisiana where it wasn't a problem for us before, is directly related," Corbin-Mark said.
"Because our global climate is getting hotter and our communities are getting hotter, there is no opportunity for ... things to die off the way they normally do in nature," he said, pointing to the warm winters of the last two years.
Corbin-Mark said a "direct correlation" exists between the U.S. "producing more than our fair share of greenhouses gases" and the milder temperatures.
'Environmental Racism'
Monique Harden of the National Black Environmental Justice Network noted that "environmental racism" is also causing harm to minority populations.
"People of African decent, Asians, Latinos and indigenous people, bear a disproportionate burden of the world environmental problems," Harden said.
According to Hardin, society's "racist underpinnings" have resulted in the placement of hazardous industries in minority communities, creating "toxic prisons" for people of color.
Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the free market advocacy group Competitive Enterprise Institute, will also be attending the Earth Summit. He said the agenda espoused by the environmentalists was off base.
"It's all about education. Our schools have failed us," stated Horner.
Horner said he expects the green groups to spend much of their time at the Earth Summit casting blame for the current state of the environment, despite the fact that, "the air is cleaner, the water is cleaner, [and] food is more readily available."
Horner congratulated President Bush's decision not to attend the summit.
"He doesn't need to go for the purpose of giving them a whipping boy for their dishonest rhetoric," he said.
Environmental groups are also unfairly targeting America, Horner said.
"We are a larger portion of the world's productivity and economy than we are the world's greenhouse gas production," he stated. According to Horner, the U.S. produces 25 percent of the world's productivity and 20 percent of the man-made greenhouse gases.
Horner also rejected the theory linking global warming to the West Nile Virus, noting that "the atmosphere has not warmed, the theory is a crock."
He scoffed at the idea that the West Nile Virus is spreading because of rising temperatures, pointing out that another mosquito borne illness, Malaria, has proliferated in such northern outposts as Russia, Alaska and Greenland.
Horner called the environmentalists' approach to population control a "cure in search of a disease."
"There is no population problem except in poor countries," Horner explained. According to Horner, the policy focus should be on creating wealth in poverty stricken nations, but he does not see environmentalists supporting those measures.
"They attack everything that supports [wealth] -- affordable energy, property rights, agricultural chemicals, modern chemistry, chlorine, it all goes back to population," he said.
Horner believes the Earth Summit's true aim is not to resolve the disputed science behind issues like global warming, but to level the economic playing field by siphoning off money from U.S. taxpayers. As proof, he cited a quote from Margot Wallstrom, the European Union's commissioner for the environment, regarding the science of climate change.
Wallstrom was quoted last year as saying: "This is not a simple environmental issue where you can say it is an issue where the scientists are not unanimous. This is about international relations, this is about economy, about trying to create a level playing field for big businesses throughout the world."
Horner said greens want Bush to attend the summit so they can "insist upon limiting wealth creation in the U.S. while increasing direct wealth transfers overseas to what have proven to be corrupt regimes."
genetic alternations of plants and animals.
Hellooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Mankind has been altering plants and animals for a long long time.
There are viruses and there are viruses. These are inoccuous viruses. Somebody's been reading too much science fiction. You do known how immunizaton shots are made for viruses? Are you going to be afraid of them too?
Not science fiction Cecil. I am a biologist as well as a taxidermist. Many "inocuous" viruses mutate into very lethal forms. We had a flu epidemic, as in 1918 Spanish flu that is a good example.
Yes, we have indeed been using selective breeding on plants and animals since the dawn of time. This is not the same as a virus mutating into a lethal agent. Bacteria as well are now becoming resistant to antibiotics thanks to our overuse of them, just as insects can become resistant to pesticides. E.coli, normally found in our intestines, can become a deadly killer if it proliferates in food.
background and I'm saying these particular viruses are not to be worried about.
The examples you are citing are not the same thing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swine_flu
Flu is not ordinarily deadly, but as I said, can mutate. So can any virus. While it may be harmless today, give it long enough around humans and some pathogenic mutant strains could crop up. You can't say what the future holds when it comes to such examples. All you can say is that it is not a pathogen at present.
Where's the live animal with the flu that jumps to humans in this case? Last I heard lunch meant isn't alive. At least I hope not as I eat a lot of it. I'd give the FDA a little credit. If there was an inkling of danger here they wouldn't allow this.
I have used 8 strains of bacteria to outcompete algae etc. in my ponds. These bactera are not pathogenic and will NEVER mutate to a dangerous pathogens. Why? Because it's like saying tomatoes are going to change to potatoes over time. They're totally different bacteria.