SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Is Your Chicken Dinner Making You Sick?
Two new reports highlight public health risks
Dec 19, 2013
Two new reports may have consumers thinking twice about having chicken for dinner.
For its report "The High Cost of Cheap Chicken," Consumer Reports tested over 300 raw chicken breasts, including some labeled as organic and antibiotic free, at national retailers. The study found that nearly all (97 percent) had potentially harmful bacteria, and roughly half (49.7 percent) the chicken sampled contained at least one multidrug-resistant bacterium.
"Our tests show consumers who buy chicken breast at their local grocery stores are very likely to get a sample that is contaminated and likely to get a bug that is multidrug resistant. When people get sick from resistant bacteria, treatment may be getting harder to find," said Dr. Urvashi Rangan, a toxicologist and Executive Director of the Consumer Reports Food Safety and Sustainability Center.
The report found enterococcus in 79.8 percent of the samples; e. coli in 65.2 percent; campylobacter in 43 percent; klebsiella pneumoniae in 13.6 percent; salmonella in 10.8 percent; and staphylococcus aureus in 9.2 percent.
Of those with e coli, 17.5 percent of the bugs were "ExPEC" bacteria, a type the report says is "more likely than other types to make you sick with a urinary-tract infection."
Salmonella is responsible for roughly 1 million foodborne illnesses each year, but according to Consumer Reports' tests of chicken over the last 15 years, there has been little change in salmonella rates, ranging between 11 and 16 percent.
"Making chicken safer to eat will require a revamping of the way that it's raised and processed," the report states.
Also on Thursday, Pew Charitable Trusts released a study in which it states that two recent outbreaks of salmonella show that federal regulations and policies fail to protect public health.
In 2012 and 2013, over 500 people were sickened from salmonella outbreaks linked to chicken processed at California plants operated by Foster Farms.
The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) issued a public health alert for the second outbreak, but not the first. While the body does not have the authority to issue a recall, it can ask the company in question to issue a recall. But in the Foster Farms case, FSIS did not ask the company to issue a recall, nor did Foster Farms independently issue a recall. Further, current salmonella contamination performance standards fail to protect public health, the Pew report states.
"When more than 500 people get sick from two outbreaks associated with chicken that meets federal safety standards, it is clear that those standards are not effectively protecting public health," said Sandra Eskin, director of Pew's food safety project.
"The Food Safety and Inspection Service should go beyond what it is proposing in its recently released 'Salmonella Action Plan' and do more to target salmonella, which is responsible for more hospitalizations and deaths than any other bacterium or virus," Eskin stated.
The report recommends that the FSIS
- Change its approach to developing and implementing limits on salmonella contamination for chicken, known as performance standards, so they are updated regularly, enforceable, and linked to public health outcomes.
- Consider establishing limits on salmonella contamination for chickens when they enter the slaughterhouse.
- Conduct unannounced salmonella testing in chicken processing facilities.
- Communicate outbreaks to consumers via public health alerts as early as possible.
- Close facilities under investigation for failing to produce safe food, and keep them closed until adequate control measures are in place.
_____________________
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Two new reports may have consumers thinking twice about having chicken for dinner.
For its report "The High Cost of Cheap Chicken," Consumer Reports tested over 300 raw chicken breasts, including some labeled as organic and antibiotic free, at national retailers. The study found that nearly all (97 percent) had potentially harmful bacteria, and roughly half (49.7 percent) the chicken sampled contained at least one multidrug-resistant bacterium.
"Our tests show consumers who buy chicken breast at their local grocery stores are very likely to get a sample that is contaminated and likely to get a bug that is multidrug resistant. When people get sick from resistant bacteria, treatment may be getting harder to find," said Dr. Urvashi Rangan, a toxicologist and Executive Director of the Consumer Reports Food Safety and Sustainability Center.
The report found enterococcus in 79.8 percent of the samples; e. coli in 65.2 percent; campylobacter in 43 percent; klebsiella pneumoniae in 13.6 percent; salmonella in 10.8 percent; and staphylococcus aureus in 9.2 percent.
Of those with e coli, 17.5 percent of the bugs were "ExPEC" bacteria, a type the report says is "more likely than other types to make you sick with a urinary-tract infection."
Salmonella is responsible for roughly 1 million foodborne illnesses each year, but according to Consumer Reports' tests of chicken over the last 15 years, there has been little change in salmonella rates, ranging between 11 and 16 percent.
"Making chicken safer to eat will require a revamping of the way that it's raised and processed," the report states.
Also on Thursday, Pew Charitable Trusts released a study in which it states that two recent outbreaks of salmonella show that federal regulations and policies fail to protect public health.
In 2012 and 2013, over 500 people were sickened from salmonella outbreaks linked to chicken processed at California plants operated by Foster Farms.
The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) issued a public health alert for the second outbreak, but not the first. While the body does not have the authority to issue a recall, it can ask the company in question to issue a recall. But in the Foster Farms case, FSIS did not ask the company to issue a recall, nor did Foster Farms independently issue a recall. Further, current salmonella contamination performance standards fail to protect public health, the Pew report states.
"When more than 500 people get sick from two outbreaks associated with chicken that meets federal safety standards, it is clear that those standards are not effectively protecting public health," said Sandra Eskin, director of Pew's food safety project.
"The Food Safety and Inspection Service should go beyond what it is proposing in its recently released 'Salmonella Action Plan' and do more to target salmonella, which is responsible for more hospitalizations and deaths than any other bacterium or virus," Eskin stated.
The report recommends that the FSIS
- Change its approach to developing and implementing limits on salmonella contamination for chicken, known as performance standards, so they are updated regularly, enforceable, and linked to public health outcomes.
- Consider establishing limits on salmonella contamination for chickens when they enter the slaughterhouse.
- Conduct unannounced salmonella testing in chicken processing facilities.
- Communicate outbreaks to consumers via public health alerts as early as possible.
- Close facilities under investigation for failing to produce safe food, and keep them closed until adequate control measures are in place.
_____________________
Two new reports may have consumers thinking twice about having chicken for dinner.
For its report "The High Cost of Cheap Chicken," Consumer Reports tested over 300 raw chicken breasts, including some labeled as organic and antibiotic free, at national retailers. The study found that nearly all (97 percent) had potentially harmful bacteria, and roughly half (49.7 percent) the chicken sampled contained at least one multidrug-resistant bacterium.
"Our tests show consumers who buy chicken breast at their local grocery stores are very likely to get a sample that is contaminated and likely to get a bug that is multidrug resistant. When people get sick from resistant bacteria, treatment may be getting harder to find," said Dr. Urvashi Rangan, a toxicologist and Executive Director of the Consumer Reports Food Safety and Sustainability Center.
The report found enterococcus in 79.8 percent of the samples; e. coli in 65.2 percent; campylobacter in 43 percent; klebsiella pneumoniae in 13.6 percent; salmonella in 10.8 percent; and staphylococcus aureus in 9.2 percent.
Of those with e coli, 17.5 percent of the bugs were "ExPEC" bacteria, a type the report says is "more likely than other types to make you sick with a urinary-tract infection."
Salmonella is responsible for roughly 1 million foodborne illnesses each year, but according to Consumer Reports' tests of chicken over the last 15 years, there has been little change in salmonella rates, ranging between 11 and 16 percent.
"Making chicken safer to eat will require a revamping of the way that it's raised and processed," the report states.
Also on Thursday, Pew Charitable Trusts released a study in which it states that two recent outbreaks of salmonella show that federal regulations and policies fail to protect public health.
In 2012 and 2013, over 500 people were sickened from salmonella outbreaks linked to chicken processed at California plants operated by Foster Farms.
The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) issued a public health alert for the second outbreak, but not the first. While the body does not have the authority to issue a recall, it can ask the company in question to issue a recall. But in the Foster Farms case, FSIS did not ask the company to issue a recall, nor did Foster Farms independently issue a recall. Further, current salmonella contamination performance standards fail to protect public health, the Pew report states.
"When more than 500 people get sick from two outbreaks associated with chicken that meets federal safety standards, it is clear that those standards are not effectively protecting public health," said Sandra Eskin, director of Pew's food safety project.
"The Food Safety and Inspection Service should go beyond what it is proposing in its recently released 'Salmonella Action Plan' and do more to target salmonella, which is responsible for more hospitalizations and deaths than any other bacterium or virus," Eskin stated.
The report recommends that the FSIS
- Change its approach to developing and implementing limits on salmonella contamination for chicken, known as performance standards, so they are updated regularly, enforceable, and linked to public health outcomes.
- Consider establishing limits on salmonella contamination for chickens when they enter the slaughterhouse.
- Conduct unannounced salmonella testing in chicken processing facilities.
- Communicate outbreaks to consumers via public health alerts as early as possible.
- Close facilities under investigation for failing to produce safe food, and keep them closed until adequate control measures are in place.
_____________________
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy