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Article: Vitamin E may be key to safer fowl.
- Article from:
- Agricultural Research
- Article date:
- January 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 U.S. Government Printing Office. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Supplementing the diets of live turkeys with vitamin E may reduce the already small chance of transmission of a serious foodborne illness.
That's the finding of an ARS study conducted on the birds that was aimed at controlling Listeria monocytogenes, a major human bacterial foodborne pathogen found in poultry.
Microbiologist Irene Wesley of the ARS National Animal Disease Center (NADC) in Ames, Iowa, says dietary supplementation with vitamin E stimulates live turkeys' immune responses and enhances clearance of the microorganism from the gut.
"This can reduce contamination of carcasses at slaughter and during processing," says Wesley, who ...