Shiloh
Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2016/09/news-scan-sep-09-2016
News Scan for Sep 09, 2016
Funds for produce safety; Resistance evolution on video; Antibiotic-resistant Salmonella in blood
Filed Under:
Foodborne Disease; Antimicrobial Stewardship; E coli; Salmonella
[h=3]States get $22 million to implement FSMA produce safety rule[/h] The US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) today awarded $21.8 million to support 42 states over 5 years in implementing the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) produce safety rule.
"Successful implementation of the produce safety rule depends on partnerships between the FDA and the states, both to deliver education and technical assistance to farmers and to provide on-going inspection, compliance and oversight," the agency said in a constituent update.
The funds will help states develop multi-year plans to implement a produce safety system in compliance with the rule, educate constituents, provide technical assistance, and initiate programs specific to farms in the area. In a tiered approach, states that grow more fresh produce will receive more funding.
Larger farms will need to comply with certain aspects of the produce safety rule by January 2018, with smaller operations having additional time to comply.
Sep 9 FDA update
Sep 9 details on the program
Produce safety rule landing page
[h=3]Scientist show bacterial resistance evolving in real time[/h] Scientists have filmed the evolution of bacterial drug resistance in real time, noting that the pathogens can mutate to grow resistant to high levels of antibiotics in about 11 days, according to a study published yesterday in Science.
Researchers from Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology built a 2-by-4-foot petri dish, which they called the Microbial Evolution and Growth Arena (MEGA) plate. They then filled it with 14 liters of agar, a growth medium for bacteria. They divided the MEGA plate into sections, with the outsides containing no antibiotics and each progressive section toward the middle containing 10 times the amount of antibiotic as the previous section.
The first section to hold an antibiotic had just enough to kill bacteria. The center of the plate contained 1,000 times as much antibiotic as the area with the lowest dose.
The team then inoculated the outside of the MEGA plate with Escherichia coli. Video of the plate showed colonies of drug-resistant bacteria gaining a foothold on the neighboring higher-drug section, then establishing themselves and spreading, until mutations allowed colonization of the next higher-dose section.
"What we saw suggests that evolution is not always led by the most resistant mutants," Baym said lead author Michael Baym, PhD, a research fellow at HMS, in a school press release. "Sometimes it favors the first to get there. The strongest mutants are, in fact, often moving behind more vulnerable strains. Who gets there first may be predicated on proximity rather than mutation strength."
The researchers caution that the MEGA plate is not intended to perfectly mirror how bacteria adapt and thrive in the real world, but they say its size allows E. coli evolution to mimic more closely the real-world environments bacteria encounter than do traditional lab cultures, according to a Harvard Medical School press release.
"This is a stunning demonstration of how quickly microbes evolve," said coauthor Tami Lieberman, PhD, now a postdoctoral research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "When shown the video, evolutionary biologists immediately recognize concepts they've thought about in the abstract, while nonspecialists immediately begin to ask really good questions."
Sep 8 Science abstract
Sep 8 HMS news release (includes video)
[h=3]Study: One fifth of Salmonella blood isolates resistant to antibiotics[/h] A new study in the Journal of Infectious Diseases shows that 20% of Salmonella isolates collected from blood samples are resistant to antimicrobials, including first-line antibiotics. According to the authors, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), drug-resistance in nontyphoidal Salmonella is now a serious health threat.
The isolates were collected from blood samples gathered from 2003 to 2013 in the United States through the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS). Men over the age of 65 were at greatest risk for infection with Salmonella resistant to first-line treatments.
Nineteen percent of isolates were resistant to tetracycline, a commonly used antibiotic. Ceftriaxone resistance slightly increased in blood isolates over the study period. Salmonella serotypes Enteritidis, Javiana, Panama, and Typhimurium were more likely to show resistance to antimicrobials than were other strains.
Salmonella is one of the most common bacterial infections in the United States, causing at least 1 million illnesses each year. While most cases resolve on their own, severe cases require antibiotic treatment. The CDC said there are now more than 100,000 cases of drug-resistant Salmonella each year.
Sep 8 J Infect Dis study
News Scan for Sep 09, 2016
Funds for produce safety; Resistance evolution on video; Antibiotic-resistant Salmonella in blood
Filed Under:
Foodborne Disease; Antimicrobial Stewardship; E coli; Salmonella
[h=3]States get $22 million to implement FSMA produce safety rule[/h] The US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) today awarded $21.8 million to support 42 states over 5 years in implementing the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) produce safety rule.
"Successful implementation of the produce safety rule depends on partnerships between the FDA and the states, both to deliver education and technical assistance to farmers and to provide on-going inspection, compliance and oversight," the agency said in a constituent update.
The funds will help states develop multi-year plans to implement a produce safety system in compliance with the rule, educate constituents, provide technical assistance, and initiate programs specific to farms in the area. In a tiered approach, states that grow more fresh produce will receive more funding.
Larger farms will need to comply with certain aspects of the produce safety rule by January 2018, with smaller operations having additional time to comply.
Sep 9 FDA update
Sep 9 details on the program
Produce safety rule landing page
[h=3]Scientist show bacterial resistance evolving in real time[/h] Scientists have filmed the evolution of bacterial drug resistance in real time, noting that the pathogens can mutate to grow resistant to high levels of antibiotics in about 11 days, according to a study published yesterday in Science.
Researchers from Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology built a 2-by-4-foot petri dish, which they called the Microbial Evolution and Growth Arena (MEGA) plate. They then filled it with 14 liters of agar, a growth medium for bacteria. They divided the MEGA plate into sections, with the outsides containing no antibiotics and each progressive section toward the middle containing 10 times the amount of antibiotic as the previous section.
The first section to hold an antibiotic had just enough to kill bacteria. The center of the plate contained 1,000 times as much antibiotic as the area with the lowest dose.
The team then inoculated the outside of the MEGA plate with Escherichia coli. Video of the plate showed colonies of drug-resistant bacteria gaining a foothold on the neighboring higher-drug section, then establishing themselves and spreading, until mutations allowed colonization of the next higher-dose section.
"What we saw suggests that evolution is not always led by the most resistant mutants," Baym said lead author Michael Baym, PhD, a research fellow at HMS, in a school press release. "Sometimes it favors the first to get there. The strongest mutants are, in fact, often moving behind more vulnerable strains. Who gets there first may be predicated on proximity rather than mutation strength."
The researchers caution that the MEGA plate is not intended to perfectly mirror how bacteria adapt and thrive in the real world, but they say its size allows E. coli evolution to mimic more closely the real-world environments bacteria encounter than do traditional lab cultures, according to a Harvard Medical School press release.
"This is a stunning demonstration of how quickly microbes evolve," said coauthor Tami Lieberman, PhD, now a postdoctoral research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "When shown the video, evolutionary biologists immediately recognize concepts they've thought about in the abstract, while nonspecialists immediately begin to ask really good questions."
Sep 8 Science abstract
Sep 8 HMS news release (includes video)
[h=3]Study: One fifth of Salmonella blood isolates resistant to antibiotics[/h] A new study in the Journal of Infectious Diseases shows that 20% of Salmonella isolates collected from blood samples are resistant to antimicrobials, including first-line antibiotics. According to the authors, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), drug-resistance in nontyphoidal Salmonella is now a serious health threat.
The isolates were collected from blood samples gathered from 2003 to 2013 in the United States through the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS). Men over the age of 65 were at greatest risk for infection with Salmonella resistant to first-line treatments.
Nineteen percent of isolates were resistant to tetracycline, a commonly used antibiotic. Ceftriaxone resistance slightly increased in blood isolates over the study period. Salmonella serotypes Enteritidis, Javiana, Panama, and Typhimurium were more likely to show resistance to antimicrobials than were other strains.
Salmonella is one of the most common bacterial infections in the United States, causing at least 1 million illnesses each year. While most cases resolve on their own, severe cases require antibiotic treatment. The CDC said there are now more than 100,000 cases of drug-resistant Salmonella each year.
Sep 8 J Infect Dis study