Consumer Reports Chicken Report - Fear your chicken or Cook your chicken

Consumer Reports has just released a report on the safety of chicken, “The High Cost of Cheap Chicken”. This report is bound to get a lot of airplay.

There is little dispute over the fact that chicken can contain pathogenic bacteria…in fact, USDA on-going testing shows similar numbers. And while this report deals out some harsh treatment of your common grocery store chickens, it is important to note that even small farmed raised chicken can have pathogenic bacteria. In the Penn State study by Dr. Cutter and Josh Scheinberg where farmers’ market chicken were found to have a high prevalence of pathogens .

The CR report does point out good information: 1) no type/brand of chicken tested was really any better than any other in terms of the prevalence of pathogenic bacteria, and 2) that it is important for people to properly handle and prepare their poultry. This includes cleaning of surfaces that may have come in contact with raw poultry or their juices and that poultry be properly cooked to a temperature of 165ºF or higher.

But in this report, as well as in the mass media reports that followed, there is there over-the-top titles or commentary that will cause confusion among consumers. In the Chicago Tribune, there is “Superbug bacteria widespread in U.S. chicken: consumer group” and in Huffington Post, “Half of Supermarket Chicken Harbors Superbugs, Consumer Reports Finds”. Superbugs in my chicken…OMG!. The term ‘superbug’ is a loosely used term that generally is applied to organisms that are resistant to multi-antibiotics. The biggest concern for multi-antibiotic resistance organisms is in hospitals, where they can cause severe infections especially during surgery. But many of these species have not been shown to be a concern in food, outside of Salmonella. Antibiotic resistance is nothing new….it has been found in microorganisms that have never been exposed to antibiotics, so superbug status could have been applied to organisms long before antibiotics were used by people. And just having resistance to a few antibiotics is not as important as to which antibiotics the organisms are resistant. So the study, which is not a scientifically peer reviewed research (as far as we can tell), does not provide detail on these particulars, but rather throws out a generalized number that is latched on by the media without providing any qualifiers. So this nebulous term ‘superbug’ used in these reports does not advance the understanding of the general public, but rather serves to grab headlines through fear.

This is not to say that antibiotics should be used judiciously for animals. In fact the FDA is looking to put tougher restrictions on antibiotic use in food producing animals. As many farmers will point out however, antibiotic use is a lot lower than portrayed in the news media.






So yes, chicken can contain pathogenic bacteria. That is why it is important to properly handle it as well as cook it.

Alert issued on raw chicken after 278 cases of salmonellosis

FSIS issued a public health alert on Foster Farm raw chicken after the chicken had been associated with 278 cases of salmonellosis. A recall was not issued in that FSIS is unable to link the illnesses to a specific product and a specific production period. Products were distributed on the west coast (CA, WA, and OR), with illnesses in some 18 sates.

 

Of course, properly cooking chicken (to 165ºF) as well as handling in a way that would prevent cross contamination would prevent foodborne illness. But we cannot blame the consumer. Reading through the comments section of each of news outlet’s articles, we can find a number of different people to blame.

• Congress - for furloughing government workers (although USDA inspectors are still on the job and this outbreak began months ago.
• Meat eaters – if people didn’t eat meat, they wouldn’t get Salmonella from chickens, except if we kept the chickens as pets.
• USDA – If they did their job, Salmonella would simply not exist on chickens. Although USDA has worked with processors for years, dropping the incident rate over the past few decades, Salmonella is still present although at a much lower incident rate (See graph below).
• The Industrial Processor – growing chicken in cramp quarters, washing them in chlorine baths, ,etc, is bound to have more Salmonella than that raised by the local farmers. Although work done here at Penn State found that it is probably not the case. (Story below or link at http://news.psu.edu/story/281316/2013/07/11/research/whole-chickens-farmers-markets-may-have-more-pathogenic-bacteria)

 Certainly, poultry processors do want to ensure that the levels of Salmonella are as low as possible to help ensure that small mistakes made by consumers is less likely to result in foodborne illness.

 

USDA News Release

 FSIS Issues Public Health Alert for Chicken Products Produced at Three Foster Farms Facilities