Decontamination of Fluid Milk Containing Bacillus Spores Using Commercial Household Products.

Although commercial sanitizers can inactivate bacterial spores in food processing environments, relatively few data exist on the decontamination of products and surfaces using household products. Should a large scale bioterrorism incident occur in which consumer food products were contaminated with a pathogenic sporeformer such as Bacillus anthracis, there might be a need to decontaminate these products before disposal as liquid or solid waste. Studies were conducted to test the efficacy of household products for inactivating spores of Bacillus cereus in vitro and in fluid milk. Validation of the resistance of the B. cereus spores was confirmed with B. anthracis spores. The resistance of spores of surrogate B. cereus strains to chlorine-containing compounds was similar to that of B. anthracis spores. Therefore, several household products on the market may be used to decontaminate fluid milk or similar food products contaminated by spores of B. anthracis. Journal of Food Protection. 2008;71(3):473–8.