British chicken full of superbugs
Marc wrote recently about the British serving chicken frequently when they invite people for a meal. Well, here’s a reason to switch to something else – the BBC reports that over a third of chickens sold in the UK could be infected with E.coli germs resistant to the antibiotic Trimethaprim which is used to treat bladder infections. VRE (Vancomycin Resistant Enteroccci) were in 1 in 25 of samples taken by the BBC and 12 of 147 chickens had antibiotic-resistant Campylobacter. Over half the birds sampled came from outside the UK.
I can’t speak for the first two germs, but from personal experience, Campylobacter is really unpleasant and very easily spread to humans. And the thought that over 8% of the chickens contained an antibiotic-resistant strain is not pleasant at all.
August 17th, 2005 at 05:08:20
I remember MANY years back a conservative minister being forced (by the media I presume) to resign after stating that pretty well ALL eggs in the UK had salmonellen bacteria. She was perfectly correct but the industry howled with rage. (Was this not Edwina Curry ???)
I remember my father (a University Research Chemist and lecturer) being very annoyed about the unreasonable treatment of someone telling the truth…....
August 17th, 2005 at 06:08:00
Yes – Edwina Curry resigned in 1988 after making remarks which caused sales of eggs to slump dramatically.
At that time, according to the BBC, 1 in 650 eggs sold were infected.
August 17th, 2005 at 11:08:30
I think its far higher proportion that 1:650.
By coincidence our son caught (that the right term?) solmonellen this Summer during our Ibiza holiday. Given that we all ate from same buffets its suprising that only get got it (I usually get anything going…)
The hotel (our regular) looked pretty clean in restaurent area but the breakfast fried eggie is a prime candidate….