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Julie Hambleton
Julie Hambleton
February 5, 2024 ·  5 min read

Superbug-Infected Chicken Is Being Sold All Over the US

When you do a quick trip through the drive-thru for some nuggets or grab a package of chicken to cook for dinner, you probably don’t think much of it. Unfortunately for some people, that least chicken-based meal is one that they can’t forget. This is because the US chicken supply is shockingly contaminated with none other than the deadly campylobacter and salmonella bacterias. As VICE recently reported in an expose, the problem is only getting worse.

Bought Chicken In The US? It Is Likely Contaminated With Superbug Bacteria

We’re taught from the time we are young not to eat undercooked chicken, poultry, and pork. Our parents and teachers tell us that it can make us sick. Did you know, however, that it could paralyze you, give you life-long health problems, and potentially even kill you? Joanne Canda-Alvarez knows this all too well after her nine-year-old son went from golfing one day to paralyzed the next. The cause? A campylobacter infection that he got from eating chicken. (1)

Within a few hours of eating the chicken, her son Jayven fell seriously ill. He then became completely paralyzed from the sudden onset of a rare autoimmune disease. Jayven went from a healthy kid to unable to speak in the hospital on a ventilator, fighting for his life. The illness caused permanent nerve damage. Four years later, he still struggles to control his hands and his right foot.

“Nobody has an answer to if he’ll ever recover fully — if his body will ever be the same,” Joanne told VICE.

The Canda-Alvarez family aren’t alone. Ashley Queipo’s son had a similarly traumatizing experience after a quick trip through the Chick-Fil-A drive thru. Within hours of eating his chicken nuggets, her son Chace fell violently ill. They rushed him to the emergency room. There, the doctors confirmed that he had an antibiotic-resistant salmonella infection. The only option the doctors had was to give him IV nutrition, monitor his vitals, and hope that he survived. Thankfully, the eight-year-old did. He now, however, is terrified to eat at restaurants and will not eat chicken.

“You don’t think that going through a drive-through and handing that brown paper bag to your kid in the back seat could cost them potentially their life,” Ashley recalled to VICE. “He was so dehydrated, he had a fever, and he was hallucinating. His body was trying so hard to fight it.” 

Chace Queipo recovering in hospital after salmonella infection
Chace Queipo recovering in hospital. Image Credit: Ashley Queipo via VICE

Read: Why Americans Refrigerate Their Milk Even Though Much of the World Doesn’t

How Infected Is Our Chicken?

The number one and two causes of foodborne illness in the United States are campylobacter and salmonella bacteria. Despite the possibility of being fatal, American companies sell tens of thousands of contaminated chicken products every year. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, antibiotic-resistant versions of these two bacteria contaminated more than half of the chicken products from government sampling records.

There is a certain amount of these bacteria that are permitted, however, most companies – including the five biggest poultry producers – have gone over these standards many, many times. 

What’s worse, while the USDA runs tests in processing plants, they aren’t tracking whether or not they exceed the threshold. Plants that continuously exceed these limits will be shut down. However, they don’t need to recall products that are above contamination levels.

Terrible Factory Conditions

VICE spoke to some workers at various poultry factories who revealed just how terrible the conditions in these factories are. Often it doesn’t matter if the meat smells rotten or has dead bugs in it, their superiors still tell them to put the meat in the grinder. They just don’t seem to care.

“Since [the meat] comes to us really dirty, when we open the box, it’s like, ‘Let’s see what’s inside!’” a worker at a Tyson plant in Springdale, Arkansas told VICE. “Sometimes it has flies, it has crickets, cockroaches in there already froze.” 

The Bleak Truth

Campylobacter bacteria causes 100 deaths in America every year and about 1.5 million infections. On top of that, it causes about 40% of the cases of Guillain-Barre Syndrome in the United States. Despite the danger, these companies are not monitored remotely as close as they should be. 

Many experts also agree that the legal levels of both campylobacter and salmonella allowed in chicken are too high. These numbers should be much lower and strictly monitored. Particularly with the number of antibiotic-resistant salmonella infections on the rise, something obviously needs to change. (2)

“In a slaughterhouse, you have lots of poultry coming from different places,” Mohammad Aminul Islam, assistant professor at Washington State University’s School for Global Health, told VICE. “So you don’t know which is from a good farm, which is a less clean farm, which is more colonized [by drug-resistant bacteria], which is less colonized. But they are just mixed together. So the processing plant hygiene and environmental condition is a critical point.”

Read: Guy Finds Weird Bead-Like Stuff In Eggs And Asks The Internet If It’s Safe

Beyond zero follow-through on regulation, the other issue is speed and personnel. The chicken is coming in faster than there are people to inspect and process it. While the companies claim that safety and reporting safety problems is their priority, the workers beg to differ. Some even claim that they’ve witnessed service officials who are there to guarantee hygiene standards sleeping on the job.

What’s Being Done

Government and other groups are calling for reform and stricter regulations from the farm to the factory to the transportation to the store. To improve bacteria and disease levels in chicken, everything needs to improve. The conditions in which the chickens are born and raised need to be better. With thousands of birds packed into tiny spaces, it is a breeding ground for bacteria. From there, both the transport and obviously plant conditions and monitoring must improve. We need stricter consequences for those who break these rules and people who are actually monitoring the plants. What the American chicken industry needs is accountability – and a complete overhaul.

While chicken continues to be the most widely consumed meat in the United States, perhaps more Americans should consider skipping out. It is also critical that when cooking at home, you are sure to cook chicken thoroughly and not cross-contaminate with other food items. Clean all surfaces and utensils that touched the raw meat well. Lastly, wash your hands properly before and after handling raw chicken. Yours and your family’s lives could depend on it.

Keep Reading: Diner disgusted after finding a full chicken head in her box of KFC hot wings

Sources

  1. Superbug-Infected Chicken Is Being Sold All Over the US.” VICE. Susannah Savage. March 16, 2022.
  2. CDC study shows rise in resistant Salmonella infections.” Cidrap. Chris Dall. May 12, 2021.