Should You Eat Chicken?

Published: October 15, 2013 393 Comments

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The agency could, however, remove its inspectors from the three suspect plants, which would close them, and last week it threatened to do just that. Three days later, Foster Farms submitted and implemented immediate substantive changes to their slaughter and processing to allow for continued operations. Whats that mean? We cannot tell you what their interventions are, because thats a proprietary issue, said Englejohn, adding that the interventions comprise additional sanitary measures that reduce contamination. Well, we hope so.
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Meanwhile, commerce continues and the chicken is out there. Will it be taken off the market after 800 people get sick? Or 1,200? Or when someone dies? Or, as F.S.I.S. would prefer, will this just die down until the next time? We should not have to handle chicken as if it were a loaded gun, nor should we be blamed when contaminated chicken makes us sick. U.S.D.A. does not stand alone. The Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A.), knowing that manufacturers grow animals under conditions virtually guaranteed to breed disease, allows them to attempt to ward off disease by feeding them antibiotics from birth until death. (This despite the stated intention of the agency to change that, and a court order requiring it to.) This rampant drug use has led to new strains of bacteria that are resistant to many antibiotics. And the situation is getting worse. Believe it or not, the presence of salmonella on chicken is both common and acceptable. (About a quarter of all chicken parts are contaminated, a fact of which F.S.I.S. is fully aware and which it is evaluating.) From the Centers for Disease Control: It is not unusual for raw poultry from any producer to have salmonella bacteria. C.D.C. and U.S.D.A.-F.S.I.S. recommend consumers follow food safety tips to prevent salmonella infection from raw poultry produced by Foster Farms or any other brand. Right. But if salmonella was ever easily killed by careful handling and cooking, perhaps that is no longer the case; perhaps its more virulent and heartier, and it certainly now defies some antibiotics. The real solution lies not only in washing your hands but in improving production methods. As Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, who, like Slaughter, is one of our best (and only) Congressional food safety advocates, said to me, We need to reform this system. And the reforms are pretty straightforward. If the F.D.A. and U.S.D.A. want to stand with citizens rather than industry when it comes to meat safety, there are two necessary steps. 1. The F.D.A. must disallow the use of prophylactic antibiotics in animal production. Its almost as simple as that. 2. The U.S.D.A. must consider salmonella thats been linked to illness an adulterant (as it does strains of E. coli), which would mean that its very presence on foods would be sufficient to take them off the market. Again, its almost as simple as that. (Sweden produces chicken with zero levels of salmonella. Are they that much smarter than us?) This assumes our agencies are willing to put our interests before industrys. If theyre not, I guess the question Whose side are you on? has been answered. Meanwhile should you eat chicken? Thats your call.