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Article: Bacteria-eating virus approved as food additive.(bacteriophages approved by Food and Drug Administration )
- Article from:
- FDA Consumer
- Article date:
- January 1, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 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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Not all viruses harm people. The Food and Drug Administration has approved a mixture of viruses as a food additive to protect people. The additive can be used in processing plants for spraying onto ready-to-eat meat and poultry products to protect consumers from the potentially life-threatening bacterium Listeria monocytogenes (L. monocytogenes).
The viruses used in the additive are known as bacteriophages. Bacteriophage means "bacteria eater." A bacteriophage, also called a phage (pronounced fayj), is any virus that infects bacteria.
Consuming food contaminated with the bacterium L. monocytogenes can cause an infectious disease, listeriosis, which is ...