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United States Medicine

Superbug-Infected Chicken Is Being Sold All Over the US (vice.com) 85

Posted by BeauHD from the time-to-go-vegetarian dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard in collaboration with The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, an independent not-for-profit news organization based in London: Campylobacter is America's biggest cause of foodborne illness, just ahead of salmonella. Both are potentially fatal. Yet between 2015 and 2020, U.S. companies sold tens of thousands of meat products contaminated with campylobacter and salmonella, according to government sampling records obtained by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. More than half of these were contaminated with antibiotic-resistant strains, a rapidly escalating issue that can be exacerbated by poor hygiene conditions. The poultry companies supply major grocery stores and fast-food chains. Tyson has supplied chicken to McDonald's, Perdue has sold to Whole Foods, and both have supplied Walmart.

Although the USDA deems a certain level of salmonella and campylobacter within poultry acceptable, 12 major U.S. poultry companies -- including poultry giants Perdue, Pilgrim's Pride, Tyson, Foster Farms, and Koch Foods -- have exceeded USDA standards for acceptable levels of salmonella multiple times since 2018, when the government began reporting contamination rates at individual plants, according to the department's records. The USDA still runs tests for campylobacter in processing plants but does not currently track whether plants exceed the contamination thresholds. Batches of poultry products with contamination rates above the limit don't have to be recalled, although plants that repeatedly exceed the thresholds can be temporarily shut down. Separate government records also show that between January 2015 and August 2019, the same 12 major U.S. poultry companies broke food safety rules on at least 145,000 occasions -- or on average more than 80 times a day. Poultry plant workers also claimed they have sometimes been asked to process rotten-smelling meat, have witnessed chicken tossed into grinders with dead insects, and found government safety inspectors apparently asleep on the job.

Campylobacter causes more than 100 deaths every year in America as well as 1.5 million infections. It also accounts for up to 40 percent of the country's cases of Guillain-Barré Syndrome [...]. Yet the sale of poultry products found to be contaminated with either that or salmonella bacteria remains perfectly legal. The level of salmonella and campylobacter that the USDA deems acceptable differs depending on the product. A maximum of 15.4 percent of chicken parts leaving a processing plant, for instance, can test positive for salmonella and the plant can still meet acceptable standards. The threshold for campylobacter is 7.7 percent. Many experts argue these levels are too lax. The report also notes the concerning increase in antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. "The number of drug-resistant salmonella infections in the U.S. rose from around 159,000 in 2004 to around 222,000 in 2016," reports Motherboard, citing the CDC. "Campylobacter has become more resistant too: Ciprofloxacin, an antibiotic commonly used to treat it, is increasingly ineffective."

"The rise of superbugs is having increasingly serious human consequences. In order to treat these illnesses, doctors are turning more frequently to last-resort drugs, which often have more side effects. And if these fail, there's no choice but to let the disease take its course."
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Superbug-Infected Chicken Is Being Sold All Over the US More

Superbug-Infected Chicken Is Being Sold All Over the US

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  • Chicken's dodgy. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Petersko ( 564140 ) on Wednesday March 16, 2022 @06:31PM (#62364707)

    165 degrees and you're good. Hold at lower for longer and you'll be fine too. Shitty cooking kills people. Chicken just happens to be an effective vehicle for it.

    • And thighs(which are all that's affordable right now) are better at 175ish anyways

      • And thighs(which are all that's affordable right now) are better at 175ish anyways

        Just last week, I think it was...I was picking up whole chickens at $0.87/lb.

        What's expensive about that?

        If you have a knife, it's trivial to cut a whole chicken up.

        • Chicken and beef have gone up a lot in the past year (at least in Texas).

          • Especially beef. Price has almost doubled. With that said I've found a pressure cooker is a good investment for cooking meats safely.

    • I think that the first crossover from bird to human in the last avian flu scare was with the people doing the butchering and handling of carcasses

      Kinda hope there is some health monitoring going on with the big processors

      • lol, sorry I *bad scan*'d that this was regarding the birds culls and they were selling bird-flu meat!

        yes, cook things thoroughly maybe even bone that thigh to get even temp

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        I think that the first crossover from bird to human in the last avian flu scare was with the people doing the butchering and handling of carcasses

        Kinda hope there is some health monitoring going on with the big processors

        Hardly. I mean, you saw what happened during the pandemic which lead to shutdowns of the big processing plants because once one person got infected, it spread to everyone else int he factory within days. Of course, without sick leave, they were forced to come in while sick, too.

        Animal produ

      • Kinda hope there is some health monitoring going on with the big processors

        That would cost money, so, no.

      • Kinda hope there is some health monitoring going on with the big processors

        As in this story, there is monitoring but without active, useful regulation. So the results are scary, but don't trigger any response.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Chicken's dodgy.

      Maybe in the land of freedumb. Most everywhere else doesn't have to rely on washing chickens with bleach to cover for shitty farming regs.

      • I wouldn't have put it quite like that, but it's true: America's food hygiene laws are terrible.
        Civilised countries protect the public from those diseases.

      • I'm not from the land of "freedumb". And even in other nations the point is valid. Poultry is best cooked properly everywhere. It's just good practice, and trivially accomplished. I won't touch a well done steak, and I won't eat rare chicken.

        Granted, mechanical separators in factory farms certainly make it worse by forcing contaminants into the meat. And the US just loves their mechanical separators... but I'm from elsewhere.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tailhook ( 98486 )

        Most everywhere else doesn't have to rely on washing chickens with bleach to cover for shitty farming regs.

        Then there are places where you can't tell what kind of meat you're eating without DNA analysis. Like Europe [yahoo.com].

        Mixtures of mystery meat are creepy, but it's still better than getting killed by E. coli. contaminated lettuce, something you should watch out for if you happen to be in Europe [wikipedia.org].

        • Then there are places where you can't tell what kind of meat you're eating without DNA analysis. Like Europe [yahoo.com]

          I don't know what the big deal was. There's at least four butchers within 200 yards of my house that only sell horse meat.

          • I sort of understand, because of horses having a different position. That said, as a student I couldn't afford the top beef so sometimes went with the top equine cut. Medium rare, great. Also, horses are not kept in such industrialised ways.

        • Then there are places where you can't tell what kind of meat you're eating without DNA analysis. Like
          That is illegal.

          E. coli. contaminated lettuce, something you should watch out for if you happen to be in Europe.
          That was an accident.

          Your contaminated paultry is so by intention, basically - as it is caused by giving low doses of antibiotics as "growing speed hormone".

    • So you don't recommend this? https://youtu.be/I87mvpVb2s0 [youtu.be]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by clovis ( 4684 )

      Chicken is dodgy, but it's the minority source of campylobacter infections.
      https://www.cdc.gov/campylobac... [cdc.gov]

      Dog and cat bites are another source of fatal infections, but I'm too lazy to find out how many are due to campylobacter. Probably no one knows.
      Anyway deaths from animal bite infections is only a couple of dozen a year at most, or about a fifth of those from eating bad chicken.

      BTW, outdoor, backyard, and free-range chickens are very likely to have salmonella and are much more likely to have it than fa

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Hodr ( 219920 )

        Not that I am afraid of handling raw poultry/meat, however the point of this article isn't that salmonella is present. It's that drug-resistant salmonella is present. That is unlikely to be the case for your free range or backyard chickens.

        Now for a person with a normal healthy immune system that's probably not an issue. For someone that would rely on antibiotics to clear this infection, it may be a bigger problem.

      • BTW, outdoor, backyard, and free-range chickens are very likely to have salmonella and are much more likely to have it than factory-farm chickens.
        But most likely not an antibiotic resistant strain - aka not a super bug.

    • 165 degrees and you're good.

      Does the farmer take a flame thrower in the field before touching the bird? A bird is handled by many people (including yourself in the kitchen) long before you have an opportunity to heat it to 165.

      Butcher lives matter!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by labnet ( 457441 )

      I find my chicken tastes dry at 165deg C.

    • This is how you get really dry chicken. Yes, its true that over 160F will instantly kill anything in the bird, if you actually bring your chicken to this temperature while on the heat, it will peak much higher and ensure dry chicken. The bacteria being killed is a function of temperature over time. You can cook to a much lower temperature while still killing all the bacteria, you just have to ensure to give it enough time at this temperature. This applies to anything being cooked. When I grill,

    • Washing chicken thoroughly then storing overnight in a water and white vinegar bath helps (never keep in original container). Naturally still needed to be cooked properly, but that goes without saying.

    • It's truly a shame the article's authors [google.com], which amazingly have submitted nothing else to Vice besides this hit-piece on the meat industry, have such a biased view of bacteria-contaminated foods in the USA. You can at least practice safe handling with Chicken and then cook it properly.

      Most people eat lettuce raw, and that's been subject to multiple recalls. [today.com]

  • if it doesn't kill you it makes you stronger.

  • There are multiple strains of salmonella, only a few of which are serious.

    This is something the industry has been sort of fighting the FDA about. The reporter apparently didn't do their research either, which is par for the course.

    Vox - let's shit on a piece of paper and call it journalism.

  • I can tell you from personal experience that campylobacter really sucks. No one likes stuff shooting out both ends for days. Really awful when you have a new baby and this happens to you and your spouse at the same time - something you will never forget.

  • What are those pussies whining about this time? A little bit of bacteria won't hurt you, not if you cook the meat right. 100 deaths a year? That's nothing. More people die from... lots of other lethal things. I've had bloody diarrhea, fever, stomach cramps, nausea & vomiting loads of times but you don't hear me complaining. It totally wasn't the cause of my irritable bowel syndrome, temporary paralysis, and arthritis. The chances of it causing a blood infection & killing you are pretty remote anyway

  • I thought the chicken lately had a bit more of a crunch to it...

    • Fortune cookie say: That wasn't chicken.

    • I just thought that chickens had gotten freakishly huge in the last 20 years or so. A chicken breast today is almost the size of a double breast 25 years ago. Freak chickens can have all of the free range they want but they can't use it because they are top heavy. Tasty when cooked well all the same.

      https://www.aspca.org/sites/de... [aspca.org]

  • The linked FA only displays a "This video is private" tag. So, if you're a nerd. you know how hack around that and Slashdot the video server.

  • >Campylobacter causes more than 100 deaths every year in America

    Yeah! Almost nobody! Bathroom accidents cause some 234,000 E.R. visits a year. Somehow, we don't outlaw bathrooms and try to get by.

    101 deaths a year! In a country like America? You know, 334,343,941 people? I feel there may be a lot more pressing issues to attend to.

  • "Campylobacter causes more than 100 deaths every year in America"
    100?

    It's a country of 300 MILLION people.
    There are probably 100 deaths a year tripping on rubber duckies.

    Look, I get it: deaths are tragic to those people and (moreso) to the families and people that love them.
    But 100 a year? Honestly, there are vastly more important things to prioritize.

    • Sounds almost like the USDA is doing it's job. If a plant exceeds the standards they have to fix it, the system is working as intended as long as you fully cook your chicken.

      If someone gets infected don't blame the chicken blame the idiot cook.

    • "Campylobacter causes more than 100 deaths every year in America" 100?

      It's a country of 300 MILLION people. There are probably 100 deaths a year tripping on rubber duckies.

      Look, I get it: deaths are tragic to those people and (moreso) to the families and people that love them. But 100 a year? Honestly, there are vastly more important things to prioritize.

      Campylobacter causes an estimated 1.5 million illnesses each year in the United States. The fatality level is very low because those cases are usually successfully treated with antibiotics. The bacterial strain under discussion here is highly antibiotics resistant. If you haven't had a light bulb moment yet, may I offer you a job commensurate with your intelligence level? ... perhaps as a fence post? ... or a crash test dummy?

  • Wuhan will have the last laugh: "KFC Flu"

  • But (Score:2)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 )

    if you take chicken off the market, many will bok.

  • That is why the EU people didn't want NAFTA (Score:5, Informative)

    by sir_smashalot_3rd ( 8248420 ) on Thursday March 17, 2022 @01:43AM (#62365469)
    Food standards in the US are considerably lower than in the EU

    • Be glad you don't have the food standards from some parts of Asia where the chicken is sold either clucking or covered in flies.

      I was on a tour where some of the guests were looking pretty revolted by the flies, and the guide explained. The reason the locals don't die from food poisoning is that the meat we saw was slaughtered less than 12 hours ago, bled, butchered, and brought straight to market. The local women would be at the market early in the morning and their purchases would be cooked in a hot wok w

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Whibla ( 210729 )

      Food standards in the US are considerably lower than in the EU

      True, they are, and that's been one of the major sticking points when it comes to signing off on any bilateral trade agreements between the US and, well now, the UK.

      I do find myself wondering at the timing of this report's release. Are there scheduled trade treaty negotiations about to take place? Has a parliamentary bill just been tabled? Perhaps a commission has just been set up to study the potential scope of future trade?

      The only buzzword they missed out was 'chlorine washed'...

  • Well, that does it. (Score:3)

    by Crash Gordon ( 233006 ) on Thursday March 17, 2022 @10:11AM (#62366145)

    No more chicken sushi for me.

  • A while ago, PBS Frontline did a documentary on the issue of bacteria in chicken in the USA.

    Watch it here: The Trouble With Chicken [youtube.com].

    Once cooked, Campylobacter and Salmonella die and are not an issue.

    However, depending on how you prepare chicken before cooking, it can cross contaminate your sink, counter, salad, ...etc. So don't wash chicken, just cook it straight from the package ...

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