Chicken ---> UTI ---> Kidney Failure

Who knew that chicken could be so dangerous?  In the hands of the Chicken Mafia, chicken has become a weaponized grade of biological warfare against you and your family, up to and including chronic disability or death.

First, some background on UTI infections in humans, then how UTI's are linked to the Chicken Mafia and the raw chicken you buy in grocery stores.

E.coli that get into the crotch area can migrate into the urethra, then into the bladder, then
the kidneys.  Once this process starts, it's hard to stop, or eliminate, especially with Superbugs.

Urinary Tract Infections in Humans

Kidney Foundation of Canada says 500,000 Canadian women seek treatment for an UTI each year (Ref).  CFP, a medical journal for family physicians, outlined a few scary facts about Urinary Tract Infections ("UTI").

• 50% of women will have a UTI sometime in their life.
• About 3% of women will get medical help at least once per year for a UTI.
• Some women with serial or chronic infections will seek treatment 3 times per year.
• A 1996 study in the US New England Journal of Medicine showed the UTI incidence rate is 0.5 to 0.7 cases per person-year.

For general info on UTI's, see CWHN and HealthyDay.  The classic causes for getting a UTI are generally listed as:

• Weakened immune system
• Stress
• Improper sleep or sleep deprivation
• Complications from other disease or medical condition
• Complication of pregnancy, from incomplete emptying of bladder, or hormonal changes affecting the vaginal pH and/or protective flora.
• Postmenopausal age, caused by infrequent urination, incomplete emptying of bladder, or hormonal changes affecting the vaginal pH and/or protective flora.
• Insufficient hydration, causing reduced quantity of urine, and infrequent voiding
• Intercourse, especially with a new partner, or after a long period of abstinance
• Taking baths, soaking, or swimming in polluted waters
• Improper toilet hygiene (eg. wiping from rear to front, etc.)
• Incontinence, or failing to change incontinence briefs on a frequent basis

All of these recommendations were based on the assumption that the E.coli was coming from the woman's own gut, out her anus, then getting cross-contaminated to her vagina and urethra area.  No standard medical texts list the UTI risks associated with purchasing raw chicken from the grocery store, or preparing chicken in the home kitchen as a family meal.

Until now, that is.

Grocery Store Chicken & Human UTI's

Today, with genetic testing and sequencing, we can tell the source and timing of when the E.coli involved in a UTI has come from.  Today, we know that the E.coli involved in most UTI's comes directly from E.coli contamination on the surface of commercially produced raw chicken, that E.coli is then spread to hands, kitchen surfaces, or other foods by cross-contamination, or by incomplete cooking of the chicken.  The E.coli contamination is eventually transferred to the woman's crotch area by contaminated hands, or ingested by contaminated foods.  If ingested, the E.coli sets up colonies in the woman's gut.  E.coli in the woman's stool eventually create fecal residues on skin surfaces that are eventually cross-contaminated to her vaginal area, causing a UTI.

Apparently, the naturally occurring E.coli in a person's gut are not the source of the E.coli that cause UTI's, as previously assumed.

The E.coli that cause human UTI's originate and primarily come from commercial chickens produced by the Chicken Mafia.

The Atlantic provides a good summary of the issues.

In 2001,  Dr. Mazzulli published a peer reviewed research paper in Canadian Journal of Urology which showed that community acquired (ie. non-hospital) Urinary Tract Infections ("UTI") in humans were infections by single organisms in over 90% of cases, and E.coli was that one infecting pathogen in 91.8% of the cases in Toronto.  That means that E.coli is the sole UTI protagonist in  82.6% of all UTI's.  Dr. Mazzulli also showed that antibiotic resistance of UTI pathogens ranged from 0% resistance (for antibiotic Ciprofloxin) to 41% ( antibiotic Penicillin).  Dr. Mazzulli also stated that "current studies suggest that there are no regional differences in resistance rates among community-acquired urinary tract pathogens across Canada."

Dr. Manges of McGill University, Montreal lead a study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases in June 7, 2012 that showed more than 85% of human UTI are caused by extra-intestinal E.coli that originate from raw chicken intended as human food. "Extra-intestinal" means the bacteria live outside of the intestinal tract. 

In March 2012, Dr. Manges from Canada's McGill University and 7 other researchers performed detailed analysis on 1,561 E.coli samples, then published their results, this time through the US Centre for Disease Control  in their Emerging Infectious Diseases publication.  They explained that UTI infections afflict 6–8 million US residents each year, with between 130 to 175 million cases diagnosed worldwide. Estimated direct health care costs related to uncomplicated UTIs in the United States are from $1 to $2 billion per year.  With the growing antibiotic resistance of these UTI pathogens, treatment has moved from "straightforward" to "complicated", the risks of treatment failure are higher, and the cost of UTI treatment is increasing.  The study concluded:

• Retail broiler chickens sold in grocery stores are a likely reservoir for ExPEC (Extra-intestinal Pathogenic E.coli) in humans.
   
• The possibility that ExPEC causing UTIs and other extraintestinal infections in humans could originate from a food animal reservoir raises public health concern.
   
• New interventions may be needed to reduce the level of food contamination and risk for transmission.

Maryn McKenna, a leading infectious disease journalist and the author of Superbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA, wrote "Touching raw meat that contains the resistant bacteria, or coming into environmental contact with it — say, by eating lettuce that was cross-contaminated — are easy ways to become infected.”

Note that 50% of the pathogens on chicken are Superbugs, resistant to 1 or more antibiotics.  If you get a UTI from one of these Superbugs, it may be months, years, or never to get an antibiotic that will totally cure that UTI infection.  The longer the infection continues, the greater risk of it growing into a kidney infection that may cause permanent damage to one or both of your kidneys. If your acute kidney infection becomes chronic, end state kidney disease will eventually require dialysis.  Once on dialysis, there is a mortality rate of 10% per year, 60% probability of death in first 5 years.  In other words, chicken bugs can kill you.

ESGNI-004, a pan-European study, reported on the incidence of hospital-acquired UTIs of 3.55/1,000 patient days, of which 31.9% of UTI's went on to develop plain sepsis, 2% severe sepsis, 0.3% septic shock and 1.7% multi-organ failure.  Antimicrobial treatment delivered by the hospital for the UTI and subsequent complications was not considered adequate in 19.8% of all cases.



ABC US News, July 11, 2012 | World News

In concert with this ABC News documentary on the chicken connection to UTI's, discussed on Food Safety News, Richard Besser, who formerly served as acting head of the CDC, shared a different view with Diane Sawyer, saying:

“I think these scientists are right, but I think it’s going to be impossible to prove.  It's different from when you get a stomach bug, or a stomach flu, where you eat something and within a couple days you’re sick and you can actually test the food and see if it matches. Here if you eat contaminated chicken, contaminated with a superbug, that superbug can set up shop in your gut and it may not be until several months later that you get a bladder infection. At that point there’s no way to connect it to something you ate months before.”

Besser emphasized the importance of proper food handling, but blamed antibiotic use in animal agriculture as the underlying problem.

“The solution is going to be on the farm,” said Besser. “CDC for decades has been concerned about getting antibiotics off the farm as a form of feed. You don’t want to feed antibiotics to animals that we’re going to eat.”

What About Small Flock Chicken?

Most or all Small Flock poultry producers do not use antibiotics as growth promoters.  This minimizes or eliminates the formation of Superbugs.

Secondly a farmer with a sharp knife can produce chicken that has 96% less contamination by pathogens.

For the Chicken Mafia, their large scale mechanized killing machines usually spray chicken manure and/or other contaminants from one bird to other birds.  The Chicken Mafia regularly puts raw chicken onto Canadian grocery store shelves that have 30% to 80% of the birds significantly contaminated with deadly pathogens (Ref:  CFIA and University of Guelph studies).

Small Flockers give full disclosure to our customers.  Unlike the Chicken Mafia, Small Flockers do not delay, deny, distract, defend, destroy, deride, and deflect.

Recommendations for Avoiding UTI's and E.coli Infections

SFPFC recommends that if you dare touch, prepare, or eat Chicken Mafia factory chicken, take the following precautions:

1. E.coli will readily stick to most surfaces, becoming more and more stuck over time, as the biofilm develops.  Any organic materials (eg. blood, chicken juice, etc.) will cover and protect E.coli, forming a biofilm that keeps the E.coli safe from UV radiation, oxygen, bleach, and other antiseptics.  E.coli generally cannot be fully washed off.  The majority of the E.coli must be removed by washing and brushing away the biofilm, then the remaining E.coli must be killed by a suitable antiseptic and sufficient contact time.  Therefore preventing contamination is far easier than removing contamination.
    
2. All grocery stores or butcher shops that sell chicken should be considered biohazardous zones, and need to be treated as such, using universal precautions such as regularly sanitizing all surfaces, using disposable food handling gloves or plastic bags to avoid directly touching packages of chicken.
3. Bag your hands before you touch packages of chicken.  Bag the chicken over top of the meat counter, not your cart & other food purchases.  Place the bagged chicken into a carry bag reserved exclusively for chicken.
    
4. Assume other shoppers have not taken the same biohazard precautions.  Assume all surfaces inside a grocery store have been contaminated with pathogenic chicken juice; especially all surfaces near the chicken meat counters.
    
5. Do not allow small children, elders, or people with weak immune systems to touch raw chicken, or surfaces contaminated by raw chicken.
   
   
   
6. Clear all clutter from kitchen counters, reducing the cleaning job.  All foods that are eaten raw or cooked to less than 70 deg C must be placed under cover, or more than 10 ft. radius distance from where the raw chicken will be handled.
    
7. DO NOT wash raw chicken, as the washing creates clouds of contaminated microdrops that spread up to 10 ft. from the wash zone.
8. Store raw chicken in a spill proof container with a lid, placing it as low in the fridge as possible. Place a clean paper towel under the dish of raw chicken so that inadvertent spills or drips can be readily detected, then sanitized before any cross-contamination spreads.
    
9. To cook your chicken, move the open garbage can next to where the cooking pot is located.  Place the unopened package of chicken inside the pot/pan that the chicken will be cooked in.  Open the package, carefully slide the raw chicken into the pot, then place the packaging into the garbage.  Sanitize your hands, utensils used, and all surfaces within 10 ft. (fallout area for microdrops from the opening of the chicken).
10. Assume your hands are contaminated with chicken Superbugs at all times.  Wash your hands before touching anybody's ears, ears, nose, mouth, or genitals. When you need to go to the bathroom, wash you hands to remove those potential Superbugs, urinate and/or defecate, then wash your hands again so as to remove any contamination picked up from touching your private parts.
     
11. Wash your hands before going to bed, and as soon as you wake up in the morning (who knows what you touched or scratched while you were sleeping).
    
    

Chicken Mafia &/or Governmental Action

The experts have recommended taking actions to prevent E.coli and their Superbug variants from contaminating our homes and grocery stores.

Does the Chicken Mafia agree this is a problem, or will they continue to delay, deny, distract, defend, destroy, deride, and deflect; rather than make the necessary changes to their dysfunctional systems?

Will the government use the Precautionary Principle, or will they wait until the paid lobbyists and pseudo-experts (ie. paid distractors and delayers) of the Chicken Mafia have delayed the inevitable for a few more decades?

Don't hold your breath waiting for the government &/or the Chicken Mafia to respond.

Lack of oxygen will kill you faster than a Chicken Superbug UTI.

It's all relative, I guess.