The food-poisoning fecal bacteria found in 70% of U.S. retail poultry is destroyed by proper cooking, but contamination of the kitchen environment may place consumers at risk.
Food-Poisoning Bacteria Cross-Contamination
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More than half of the retail poultry in the world is contaminated with the food poisoning bacteria, Campylobacter. About 50% of European poultry, 60% of Northern American retail—more than 70% in the U.S.—most of which were recently reported to be antibiotic-resistant. But not all strains of Campylobacter can trigger human paralysis; not all strains have that molecular mimic.
Researchers at Hopkins and UCLA recently looked into the prevalence of the potentially neuropathic strains of Campylobacter in commercial poultry products, right off of supermarket shelves. Of 65 isolates of Campylobacter, they found only about 60% were in the three classes most associated with the development of paralysis. So the odds may be only 50/50 or so that you might be bringing home something that could trigger Guillain-Barré syndrome.
Even if you make the wrong choice, though, who undercooks chicken? I mean eggs, I can see. People like their sunny side up yolk a little runny, or a burger that’s a little pink inside. But who wants rare chicken? That’s not the main problem. It’s not the undercooking; it’s the cross-contamination.
Once that meat thermometer hits the right temperature, any and all fecal contamination is cooked. You could let your kids play with it; you could rub your toothbrush on it. All viruses and bacteria are dead. You could still, I don’t know, choke on a chicken bone, puncture an artery, and bleed to death, but the infectious disease problem with chicken is between when you first touch the package at the store, and when it finally makes it into the pot.
You can have all the safe cooking labels you want, but that won’t raise awareness that bacteria from the surface of the chicken meat can stick to the hands of the cook, or could be spread in the kitchen environment, and subsequently may contaminate ready-to-eat foods, like salads, or already cooked foods, accompanying the meal.
Why don’t we have that kind of label instead of just safe cooking? Consumer surveys show that the majority of people want to see that kind of information on food packaging. Why not just name poultry, meat, and eggs as likely contamination sources with foodborne pathogens like Salmonella and Campylobacter? Good for consumer safety, public health.
But from an industry point of view, the problem with that is “it has been shown that this sort of ‘naming and blaming’ infection risks to poultry meat and eggs may result in a drop of poultry meat and egg consumption.”
To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by veganmontreal.
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.
- Suzuki H, Yamamoto S. Campylobacter contamination in retail poultry meats and by-products in the world: a literature survey. J Vet Med Sci. 2009 Mar;71(3):255-61.
- Zhao S, Young SR, Tong E, Abbott JW, Womack N, Friedman SL, McDermott PF. Antimicrobial Resistance of Campylobacter Isolates from Retail Meat in the United States between 2002 and 2007. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2010 Dec;76(24):7949-56.
- Luber P. Cross-contamination versus undercooking of poultry meat or eggs - which risks need to be managed first? Int J Food Microbiol. 2009 Aug 31;134(1-2):21-8.
- Hardy CG, Lackey LG, Cannon J, Price LB, Silbergeld EK. Prevalence of potentially neuropathic Campylobacter jejuni strains on commercial broiler chicken products. Int J Food Microbiol. 2011 Feb 28;145(2-3):395-9.
- Peonim V, Udnoon J. Left subclavian arterioesophageal fistula induced by chicken bone with upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage and unexpected death: report of a case. J Med Assoc Thai. 2010 Nov;93(11):1332-5.
More than half of the retail poultry in the world is contaminated with the food poisoning bacteria, Campylobacter. About 50% of European poultry, 60% of Northern American retail—more than 70% in the U.S.—most of which were recently reported to be antibiotic-resistant. But not all strains of Campylobacter can trigger human paralysis; not all strains have that molecular mimic.
Researchers at Hopkins and UCLA recently looked into the prevalence of the potentially neuropathic strains of Campylobacter in commercial poultry products, right off of supermarket shelves. Of 65 isolates of Campylobacter, they found only about 60% were in the three classes most associated with the development of paralysis. So the odds may be only 50/50 or so that you might be bringing home something that could trigger Guillain-Barré syndrome.
Even if you make the wrong choice, though, who undercooks chicken? I mean eggs, I can see. People like their sunny side up yolk a little runny, or a burger that’s a little pink inside. But who wants rare chicken? That’s not the main problem. It’s not the undercooking; it’s the cross-contamination.
Once that meat thermometer hits the right temperature, any and all fecal contamination is cooked. You could let your kids play with it; you could rub your toothbrush on it. All viruses and bacteria are dead. You could still, I don’t know, choke on a chicken bone, puncture an artery, and bleed to death, but the infectious disease problem with chicken is between when you first touch the package at the store, and when it finally makes it into the pot.
You can have all the safe cooking labels you want, but that won’t raise awareness that bacteria from the surface of the chicken meat can stick to the hands of the cook, or could be spread in the kitchen environment, and subsequently may contaminate ready-to-eat foods, like salads, or already cooked foods, accompanying the meal.
Why don’t we have that kind of label instead of just safe cooking? Consumer surveys show that the majority of people want to see that kind of information on food packaging. Why not just name poultry, meat, and eggs as likely contamination sources with foodborne pathogens like Salmonella and Campylobacter? Good for consumer safety, public health.
But from an industry point of view, the problem with that is “it has been shown that this sort of ‘naming and blaming’ infection risks to poultry meat and eggs may result in a drop of poultry meat and egg consumption.”
To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by veganmontreal.
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.
- Suzuki H, Yamamoto S. Campylobacter contamination in retail poultry meats and by-products in the world: a literature survey. J Vet Med Sci. 2009 Mar;71(3):255-61.
- Zhao S, Young SR, Tong E, Abbott JW, Womack N, Friedman SL, McDermott PF. Antimicrobial Resistance of Campylobacter Isolates from Retail Meat in the United States between 2002 and 2007. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2010 Dec;76(24):7949-56.
- Luber P. Cross-contamination versus undercooking of poultry meat or eggs - which risks need to be managed first? Int J Food Microbiol. 2009 Aug 31;134(1-2):21-8.
- Hardy CG, Lackey LG, Cannon J, Price LB, Silbergeld EK. Prevalence of potentially neuropathic Campylobacter jejuni strains on commercial broiler chicken products. Int J Food Microbiol. 2011 Feb 28;145(2-3):395-9.
- Peonim V, Udnoon J. Left subclavian arterioesophageal fistula induced by chicken bone with upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage and unexpected death: report of a case. J Med Assoc Thai. 2010 Nov;93(11):1332-5.
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Food-Poisoning Bacteria Cross-Contamination
LicenciaCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
URLNota del Doctor
I explain about Guillain-Barré syndrome (Campylobacter-triggered paralysis) in Poultry and Paralysis, in case you missed it. Fecal contamination from poultry is thought to be why more fecal bacteria can be recovered from kitchen sinks than toilet seats; see Fecal Contamination of Sushi. For cross-contamination and undercooking risks associated with eggs, see my video, Total Recall.
For further context, check out my associated blog posts: Bugs & Drugs in Pork: Yersinia and Ractopamine; Which Pets Improve Children’s Health?; Why Is Selling Salmonella-Tainted Chicken Legal?; and Probiotics and Diarrhea.
2018 Update: I recently published a few new videos on chicken and illnesses. See: How to Shop for, Handle, & Store Chicken and Urinary Tract Infections from Eating Chicken.
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