3-13 news: USDA approves E. coli vaccine for cattle
“It really is a major milestone for our industry,” Michelle Rossman, director of beef safety research for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, said Thursday.
The vaccine works by preventing E. coli O157:H7 present in cows' intestines from absorbing iron. It takes the proteins that E. coli use to absorb iron from the host animal and injects them back into the cattle to generate an immune response against those proteins. The bacteria can't absorb iron without those proteins and die, according to Epitopix.