Dear Editor:
The report on meat-borne pathogens in the New England Journal of Medicine bears special significance against the background of the current anthrax hysteria. Three independent studies found that up to half of supermarket meat and poultry samples were contaminated with antibiotic-resistant bacteria that each year kill thousands and sicken millions.
All this is in spite of the implementation of the new, highly touted USDA meat inspection program and without the workings of anyone wishing us ill. Now, consider the opportunity that a slaughterhouse provides to a bio-terrorist.
US slaughterhouses have a large turnover of undocumented aliens. It would be child’s play for a bio-terrorist to enter the country legally or otherwise, join the slaughterhouse staff; and slip a powerful pathogen into a vat of ground meat destined for hamburgers or hot dogs (frequently eaten uncooked). The culprit would be long out of the country before the contaminated product reached supermarket shelves and thousands of his victims begin dying.
Anyone really concerned with anthrax or other form of bio-terrorism would be well advised to lay off meat and poultry for a while.
Alison Gottlieb