E. coli Vaccine Used Commercially for First Time

BELLEVILLE, Ontario, Canada — The beef industry has been talking about developing a pathogen intervention at the farm level for more than a decade. The industry may be a step closer to clearing such a hurdle: Bioniche Life Sciences’ vaccine against E. coli O157:H7 in cattle has been used for the first time by a commercial beef producer.

Top Meadow Farms, an Ontario-based producer of beef, integrated use of the E. coli O157:H7 vaccine into its Top in Field brand cattle rearing standards, under the auspices of Canadian Food Inspection Agency (C.F.I.A.) regulations governing the sale of the vaccine in Canada.

"The Bioniche vaccine provides an important pre-harvest intervention against E. coli O157:H7 that we are very pleased to add to our C.F.I.A.-audited Top in Field feed and husbandry protocols," said Kym Anthony, owner of Top Meadow Farms. "Equally, we are pleased to have the support of retailers of our beef, such as the Highland Farms grocery chain and the award-winning Via Allegro restaurant: All of us take food safety to be a core obligation."

The vaccine remains under review by the C.F.I.A. and the United States Department of Agriculture. In the course of its review process, the C.F.I.A. notified Bioniche last December that it was agreeable to issuing permits under the Permit to Release Veterinary Biologics regulations. The regulations allow cattle owners, through their veterinarians, to request vaccine be supplied to them by Bioniche.

Source: www.MeatPoultry.com