Vaccination could have prevented massive egg recall

[Puppycow]

Once again, the cost effectiveness and common sense of vaccination has been demonstrated. Recently half a billion eggs have been recalled in the US due to a salmonella outbreak. A vaccination that would cost less than a penny per dozen could have prevented it.

U.S. Rejected Hen Vaccine Despite Success in Britain

Faced with a crisis more than a decade ago in which thousands of people were sickened from salmonella in infected eggs, farmers in Britain began vaccinating their hens against the bacteria. That simple but decisive step virtually wiped out the health threat.

But when American regulators created new egg safety rules that went into effect last month, they declared that there was not enough evidence to conclude that vaccinating hens against salmonella would prevent people from getting sick. The Food and Drug Administration decided not to mandate vaccination of hens — a precaution that would cost less than a penny per a dozen eggs.

Now, consumers have been shaken by one of the largest egg recalls ever, involving nearly 550 million eggs from two Iowa producers, after a nationwide outbreak of thousands of cases of salmonella was traced to eggs contaminated with the bacteria.
. . .
The drop in salmonella infections in Britain was stunning.

In 1997, there were 14,771 reported cases in England and Wales of the most common type of the bacteria, a strain known as Salmonella Enteritidis PT4. Vaccine trials began that year, and the next year, egg producers began vaccinating in large numbers.

The number of human illnesses has dropped almost every year since then. Last year, according to data from the Health Protection Agency of England and Wales, there were just 581 cases, a drop of 96 percent from 1997.

“We have pretty much eliminated salmonella as a human problem in the U.K.,” said Amanda Cryer, director of the British Egg Information Service, an industry group.

The F.D.A. estimates that each year, 142,000 illnesses in the United States are caused by consuming eggs contaminated with the most common type of salmonella. It has said the new rules would cut that by more than half. People who eat bad eggs that have not been cooked thoroughly to kill the bacteria can get diarrhea and cramps. Rare cases can be fatal.

So, vaccination reduced the number of cases by 96% but the FDA estimates that its rules (not including mandatory vaccines) will reduce cases by "more than half."

And consider the costs:

The F.D.A. has estimated that it would cost farmers about 14 cents a bird to vaccinate, or about $31 million to cover hens at all the large farms in the country. But vaccine company executives said the cost can be just a few cents a bird, depending on the type of vaccine and how many doses are given. A single bird can lay about 270 eggs in its lifetime.

The price of eggs according to this article is about 13 cents per egg, so that's $71 million dollars worth of eggs right there (although not all of those will actually be returned).

And at less than a penny per dozen eggs, that's still a lot cheaper than Michael Pollan's suggestion of buying 50-cent or 75-cent organic eggs at your local farmer's market.

 

[!Kaggen]

Once again, the cost effectiveness and common sense of vaccination has been demonstrated. Recently half a billion eggs have been recalled in the US due to a salmonella outbreak. A vaccination that would cost less than a penny per dozen could have prevented it.

U.S. Rejected Hen Vaccine Despite Success in Britain



So, vaccination reduced the number of cases by 96% but the FDA estimates that its rules (not including mandatory vaccines) will reduce cases by "more than half."

And consider the costs:


The price of eggs according to this article is about 13 cents per egg, so that's $71 million dollars worth of eggs right there (although not all of those will actually be returned).

And at less than a penny per dozen eggs, that's still a lot cheaper than Michael Pollan's suggestion of buying 50-cent or 75-cent organic eggs at your local farmer's market.

Will now this is a classic example of selective reporting, journalist Puppycow.

You visited an industrial egg farm recently?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59f3xeUgChc

Vaccinations are not a solution to everything, neither is organic by the way.

 

[!Kaggen]

And there are other ways of tackling Salmonella

“The administered probiotic bacteria improved both the clinical and microbiological outcome of Salmonella infection,” say the researchers. “These strains offer significant benefit for use in the food industry and may have potential in human applications.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070319175043.htm

Abstract"In the present study, a series of experiments were conducted to evaluate the ability of a combination of 3 ATCC lactobacilli (LAB3) or a commercially available probiotic culture (PROB) to reduce Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis (Salmonella Enteritidis) in broiler chicks. Additionally, we varied the timing of PROB administration in relationship to Salmonella challenge and determined the influence on recovery of enteric Salmonella. In experiments 1 to 3, chicks were randomly assigned to treatment groups and were then challenged via oral gavage with Salmonella Enteritidis. Chicks were treated 1 h after Salmonella Enteritidis challenge with LAB3 or PROB. Twenty-four hours posttreatment, cecal tonsils were collected for recovery of enteric Salmonella. In experiments 4 to 7, day-of-hatch chicks were randomly assigned to treatment groups and were then treated with PROB via oral gavage and placed into pens. Chicks were challenged with Salmonella Enteritidis 24 h after treatment via oral gavage. At 24 h after Salmonella Enteritidis challenge, cecal tonsils were collected and recovery of enteric Salmonella was determined. In experiments 8 to 10, 1-d-old chicks were randomly assigned to treatment groups and were then challenged via oral gavage with Salmonella Enteritidis and placed into pens. Chicks were treated 24 h after challenge with PROB via oral gavage. Twenty-four hours post PROB treatment, cecal tonsils were collected and enriched as described above. It was found that PROB significantly reduced cecal Salmonella Enteritidis recovery 24 h after treatment as compared with controls or LAB3-treated chicks in experiments 1 to 3 (P < 0.05). Administration of PROB 24 h before Salmonella Enteritidis challenge significantly reduced recovery of Salmonella Enteritidis in 2 out of 4 experiments and no reduction in cecal Salmonella Enteritidis was observed when chicks were challenged with Salmonella Enteritidis and treated 24 h later with PROB. These data demonstrate that PROB more effectively reduced Salmonella Enteritidis than LAB3, and the timing of PROB treatment affects Salmonella Enteritidis-associated reductions."
http://ps.fass.org/cgi/content/abstract/89/2/243

 

[Aepervius]

So , instead of using a proven way to do things, which has be shown to work, you firstly show a video on how chicken are handled (a non sequitur) and then link to another method which involve introducing otehr bactery. Methink you should reread the OP post.

 

[!Kaggen]

Hello?
Puppycow used economics to justify vaccines above other methods of reducing Salmonella infection, I threw in welfare as a counter argument so what's the problem!!

In my opinion using vaccines to prop up a system of food production which needs to change is counter-productive.

 

[Philip]

Besides, you wouldn't want all those chickens to get autism.

 

[Aepervius]

Hello?
Puppycow used economics to justify vaccines above other methods of reducing Salmonella infection, I threw in welfare as a counter argument so what's the problem!!

In my opinion using vaccines to prop up a system of food production which needs to change is counter-productive.

The problem is that you haven't showed it is economically sensible, feasible , or even desirable for the bacterial flora change method. There is a reason chicken are treated so poorly, and that reason is economical. Throwing a "it is because we treat the chicken poorly" as an assertion will not demonstrate that the amount of salmonella infection would be reduced by more than 95% if they were treated well. That you think the production method should be changed is your problem. The discussion at hand is not whether chicken are treated poorly, the discussion at hand is that the change projected by the FDA do not reach the level of reduction that the change done by the UK has made, and vaccination is a very safe and cheap way to get this to be done and was demonstrated to work. IOW you came up with *another* unproven solution.

ETA: an opinion not funded on rational argument is worthless. Show first what is the economical price per chicken and per egg of your method, and the projected reduction in salmonella infection and we can discuss the merit of the method. But throwing a "we should treat chicken well" is a non sequitur when coming down to fact cited in the op.

 

[LarianLeQuella]

Has anyone died as a result of this salmonilla outbreak? Just ONE death should be reason enough to institute this if it could have been prevented.