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millions of Americans come down with
bladder infections urinary tract
infections every year including more
than a million children most cases stay
in the bladder but when the bacteria
creep up into the kidneys or getting to
the bloodstream things can get serious
thankfully we have antibiotics but
there's now a pandemic of a new multi
drug-resistant strain of E coli
discovered just in 2008 and now the so
called s T 131 strain went from unknown
to a leading cause of bladder infections
the world over resistant to even some of
our second and third line antibiotics
and it's been found in chicken retail
chicken breast sampled from across the
country documenting a persisting
reservoir of extensively antimicrobial
resistant expect bacteria the extra
intestinal pathogenic e.coli including
the est 131 strain in retail chicken
products in the United States suggesting
potential public health threat C urinary
tract infections may be foodborne by
which they mean predominately poultry
chicken and turkey so maybe we shouldn't
be feeding antibiotics to these animals
by the ton in poultry production but
wait foodborne bladder infection so what
are you doing with that drumstick mmm no
eating contaminated chicken can lead to
the colonization of the rectum with
these bacteria that can then even months
later crawl up into the bladder to cause
an infection the problem of increasing
antimicrobial resistance is so dire to
some experts are predicting that the era
of antibiotics may be coming to an end
assuring in a post-antibiotic era in
which common infections and minor
injuries can once again kill more than
80% of E coli isolate from beef pork and
poultry exhibited resistance to at least
one end abadox in more than half from
poultry were resistant to five different
drugs one of the ways this happens is
that viruses called bacteria phages can
transfer antibiotic-resistant genes
between bacteria about a quarter of
these viruses and isolated from chicken
meat were found able to transduce
antibiotic drug resistance into a coli
and one of the big problems with this is
that disinfectants used to kill bacteria
or in many cases not able to eliminate
these viruses some of these viruses are
even resistant to bleach of the kinds of
concentrations used in the food industry
and likewise alcohol which is what you
find in many hand sanitizers also unable
to harm most of them the irony is that
the industry has tried to intentionally
feed these viruses to chickens why would
they do that
it can boost egg production in hens and
increased body weight gain in broiler
chickens to get them to slaughter weight
faster the only thing that seems to
dissuade the industry is if anything
affects the taste of the meat that's why
the industry had to stop spraying
chickens with benzene to kill off all
the parasites the meat ended up with a
distasteful flavor described as strong
acidic musty medicinal biting
objectionable and mmm tasty but what if
you buy organic chicken for another type
of bacteria and or caucus antibiotic
resistant bugs were found in both
conventional and organically raised
chicken but were less common in organic
only about one in three contaminated
with drug-resistant bugs
compared to nearly one in two but in a
study of hunters of prepackaged retail
chicken breast tested from ninety-nine
grocery stores being labeled organic or
antibiotic free did not seem to impact
the contamination levels of antibiotic
resistant ecoli from fresh retail
chicken though purchasing me from
natural food stores appeared to be safer
regardless of how it was labeled kosher
chicken appeared to be the worst nearly
twice the level of antibiotic resistant
coli contamination compared to
conventional which goes against the
whole concept of kosher no difference in
drug-resistant strain the e.coli swab
from conventional chicken versus organic
and raised without antibiotics chicken
but either way kosher
was worse but how could organic and
raised without antibiotics chicken not
be better well it could be
cross-contamination at the slaughter
plant so yeah bugs just jumped from one
to the other or it could be the organic
chicken loophole USDA Organic Standards
prohibits the use of antibiotics and
poultry starting on day two of the
animal's life this is an important
loophole since even antibiotics
considered critical for human health
are routinely injected into one day old
chicks and eggs which has been directly
associated with antibiotic resistant
food borne infections and there was no
difference in the presence of expect
bacteria between organic and
conventional the bacteria implicated in
urinary tract infections these findings
suggest that retail chicken products in
the United States even if they're
labeled organic posed a potential health
threat to consumers because they're
contaminated with extensively antibiotic
resistant ecoli and even if we were able
to get the poultry industry to stop
using antibiotics the contamination of
chicken meat with expec bacteria could
still remain a threat
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