Health Law

An E.coli O157:H7 Vaccine for Cattle - What's the Hold Up?

By Marler Clark

According to an article in Candian Cattlemen,  a Candadian firm, Bioniche Life Sciences,  has developed a vaccine that reduces colonization of cows by E. coli O157 bacteria and reduces the amount of the bacteria shed in cattle manure. One would think that reductions of this nature would in turn lead to less human expsoure to the potentially fatal pathogen.

Surprisingly though, the article states that those in the cattle industry "believe that they receive no immediate or direct benefit for spending money to vaccinate their herds against E. coli O157." 

Really?  No direct benefit from the removal of a fatal pathogen from the food you sell?  Talk about a short-sighted approach to business.  With the cattle industry's reluctance to use [i.e. pay for] such a vaccine on the farm, Bioniche is seeking support [i.e. money] from the Canadian government to implement the use of the vaccine.

If the vaccine really works, lets hope somene sees through to getting it in use, as we continue to see tragic news related to E. coli O157:H7 in hamburger.

Full post as published by Food Poison Blog on May 29, 2009 (boomark / email).