Oregon State Public Health Laboratory FDA NARMS Retail Meat Program Summary/Abstract The Oregon State Public Health Laboratory (OSPHL) plans to continue participation in the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) Retail Meat Program to provide information from active surveillance of retail meat products for microorganisms that cause foodborne illness to support epidemiological investigation and response locally and nationally. The mission of the OSPHL is to protect the health and safety of Oregonians and provide surveillance of retail meats for specific pathogens to support this goal. The OSPHL will purchase up to 80 retail meat samples per month in the metropolitan Portland area and identify bacterial isolates with microbial culture techniques. The OSPHL will send isolates of Salmonella spp., Campylobacter spp., Enterococcus spp., and Escherichia coli for antimicrobial resistance testing at the FDA. Timely information on bacterial loads on retail meat and further characterization of Salmonella spp. at the OSPHL will allow our Oregon state epidemiologists to initiate the appropriate public health response for foodborne illness outbreaks. Additional information on antimicrobial resistance may direct treatment of human cases and indicate trends to allow epidemiological intervention and evaluation of health risk. The OSPHL has participated in the FDA NARMS Retail Meat Program since 2002. We will continue to purchase retail meat products as directed by the FDA sampling program and process the meat samples utilizing the FDA protocols. All Salmonella isolates will be serotyped and characterized by pulsed filed gel electrophoresis at the OSPHL to provide comparative information with human isolates. Antimicrobial resistance testing will be performed on all isolates at the FDA and all data will be shared with state partners.
for FDA NARMS Retail Meat Program The Oregon State Public Health Laboratory (OSPHL) will continue to participate in the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System Retail Meat Program to purchase up to 80 meat samples at retail stores in the metropolitan Portland area. The OSPHL will process all samples per FDA protocols for isolation and identification. All isolates will be submitted to the FDA for antimicrobial resistance testing with all information generated shared with Oregon epidemiologists to allow for foodborne illness investigation and response.
