Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus in Retail Meat, Detroit, Michigan, USA

To the Editor: Because methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has been identified in retail meat worldwide (1–4), the potential exists for its transmission to humans. Of the various meat products surveyed, pork had the highest contamination rate in the United States and Canada (1,2), as did beef in Korea (3) and poultry in the Netherlands (4). The study in Korea also observed MRSA from chicken, which demonstrated sequence type (ST) 692 by multilocus sequence typing (MLST), a type distinct from that isolated in beef and pork. Despite sample size variations, these studies suggested that MRSA contamination in different meat categories can vary by location and that molecular distinction may exist among MRSA isolates in meat of different origin.