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.

Superbugs: CAFO-Induced Infections, and a 10-step solution

Nosocomial is defined as "acquired or occurring in a hospital".  Superbug infections are some of the worst nosocomial events.  Now Canada's Auditor General Spring 2015 report has joined the discussion, reminding us that Health Canada has failed to act on Superbugs, even on the priorities that Health Canada has identified for themselves.

This Blog has been pointing out the risk of Superbugs in both community and hospitals for two years, risks mainly caused or contributed to by CAFO factory farms (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).

Twenty-two posts in 2 years, just on Superbugs and antibiotics.  Now I clearly see why I'm behind on getting my farm chores done.  It's not that I am trying to be a broken record.  This is a critical issue, and a complex issue.  These two simultaneous factors create many issues that need to be examined in great depth to properly understand the overall subject of Superbugs and antimicrobials.

Ignore the warnings of this man (and the eventual wrath
of the public) at your own peril.

Canada's Auditor General Michael Ferguson is not happy
with the bureaucratic foot dragging of Health Canada on
antimicrobial misuse, and the resulting Superbugs.  CAFO
farms are the root cause of these deadly Superbug diseases.
Photo: Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press

The CAFO Caper

CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations), both within and outside of Supply Management for chickens, turkeys, and dairy, are the epicenter of causing or contributing to Superbugs that infect &/or kill Canadians.

CAFO's are well known for creating Superbugs, usually due to the crazy, indiscriminate, or illegal use of antibiotics so as to make higher profits for these greedy CAFO operators and their Big Food partners.

CAFO's are known reservoirs of Superbugs, CAFO's store Superbugs they created themselves, and/or Superbugs imported from elsewhere.  These Superbugs are stored inside CAFO's due to the dysfunctional processes of CAFO's.  Slowly & continuously, these Superbugs bleed out into the community as unwelcome hitchhikers on the movement of the CAFO animals, the CAFO employees as they go back and forth from home to work, and on suppliers who visit the CAFO.

As Superbugs from CAFO's bleed out into the neighbouring communities, people get sick from those Superbug infections.  When you suddenly get sick, it's natural to go to the nearest hospital to seek help.  Hospitals are continuously bombarded by Superbugs, one wave after another.  Most of the Superbug bombardments of hospitals originate from dysfunctional CAFO's.

Some hospitals have effective programs to prevent and control pathogens in hospitals.  However, when these "state of the art" infection control systems are continuously swamped by a tsunami of Superbugs, those hospital systems become overwhelmed.  With an unseen, microscopic Superbug enemy, it is hard to keep focused and effective vigilance by all staff and all patients on a 24-7-365 basis.

Most hospitals are far from perfect on their infection control systems, ending up adding to the resistance and strength of the Superbugs that continuously arrive at the doors of these hospitals.  Half-hearted disinfection efforts in these hospitals strengthens the resident Superbugs more and more each day, helping them gain experience at surviving all chemical disinfectants and methods that are used superficially.  Eventually, even if the hospital moves from superficial to best available disinfection, the stronger and more experienced Superbugs are resistant to even the best efforts.  The strong and experienced Superbugs can no longer be defeated by the best available methods.  More and more patients and hospital staff are infected, and some die.

Canada's Auditor-General Findings

Canada's Auditor General reported:

"... the Department [Health Canada] has not strengthened existing regulations to prohibit farmers from importing unlicensed non-prescription antimicrobial drugs that are important to human medicine for use in their own animals.  The Department does not assess these drugs for quality, safety, or efficacy. According to the Department, the use of these drugs in food animals may have serious public health implications, including the development of antimicrobial resistance. Furthermore, the Department allows certain antimicrobials that are used to treat serious infections in humans to be sold without a prescription for use in food animals"

and

"Health Canada is aware that regulations presently do not prohibit the importation of non-prescription antimicrobial drugs important to human medicine that have not been licensed for sale in Canada, on the condition that these drugs will not be resold. As a result, farmers are able to import these drugs and use them in their own animals. This is often referred to as “own-use importation.”

Note that the AG's statement "import these drugs and use them in their own animals" refers to farm animals that subsequently become food for Canadians (eg. beef, pork, chicken, turkeys, lamb, etc.).

and

 "The Department is also aware that there are few regulatory controls over the importation of veterinary active pharmaceutical ingredients — including ingredients used in antimicrobial drugs important to human medicine. Health Canada has concerns about the importation and direct use of these ingredients in food animals."

Note that "veterinary active pharmaceutical ingredients" referenced above are bulk drugs immediately prior to being packaged into veterinary drugs (eg. pills, vials, ampules, etc.).  Buying bulk drugs are significantly cheaper, and mainly escape regulatory controls though loopholes used by CAFO farmers, Big Food, and/or their henchmen.

When CAFO farms use 75% of all drugs manufactured (ie. only 25% are used for humans), you can better understand why CAFO farmers (and the animal feed manufacturers who sell to CAFO farmers), import, buy, and use "veterinary active pharmaceutical ingredients".

and

"Public Health Agency of Canada (the Agency) and Health Canada (the Department) have not fulfilled key responsibilities to mitigate the public health risks posed by the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance in Canada"

Canada's Auditor General made a good start, but in our opinion, didn't go far enough on this critical issue that is killing Canadians.

We'd like to add some Small Flocker icing to the Auditor-General's cake.

Small Flockers Recommendations

While the Federal Government needed their collective noses rubbed in this growing mess they helped create, what about the CAFO farmers?

Is there no social or moral responsibility to do what is right, regardless of any loopholes that may exist in the government's regulation?  Do CAFO farmers have full right and no responsibility for running amok?

I think CAFO farmers, and all others who misuse antimicrobials, need to curtail their reckless behaviours, no matter what loopholes may exist in the past, current, or future regulations.

For Supply Management regulations that enable CAFO chickens, turkeys, and dairy, there will always be a gap between available technologies newly emerged, and the regulations.  Regulations will always be behind the time, and must always catch up to latest emerging technologies, or the craziness of out of control or imprudent individuals.

Small Flock Poultry Farmers of Canada recommend revising Canada's Supply Management regulations to:

1. Expressly require prudent and reasonable actions by all Boards and others who are created or regulated, including the quota-bearing SM farmers;
2. Expressly imposes a duty on all parties who are created or regulated to always act in the best interest of the Canadian public;
3. Expressly impose a duty for all parties who are created or regulated to consider the Precautionary Principle prior to all decisions, and periodically consider it for all duties; and apply those Precautionary Principle when it is prudent to do so;
4. Expressly legislate that all parties who are created or regulated have no immunity, and have civil liability for their criminal acts, bad faith, conflicts of interests, negligence, and their other tortuous actions and inactions;
5. Expressly legislate that the Officers, and Directors of all Boards who are created or regulated have unlimited personally liable for their criminal, bad faith, conflicts of interest, or negligent actions and inactions that they personally do, and are done by their organization with their knowledge and their approval or acquiescence while they hold their position;
   
6. Expressly regulate civil and/or quasi-criminal penalties for non-compliance or breach of these fiduciary duties and/or the regulations.
7. Expressly regulate mandatory planning and implementation of regular internal quality and risk auditing by competent, objective, and unbiased auditors for compliance and effectiveness; and external auditing by competent, objective, and unbiased third party quality & risk management auditors at least annually; require timely remedial actions to prevent, contain, mitigate, and remedy non-compliances and significant risks; and re-auditing of all remedial actions to ensure they are completed in a timely manner, and are effective.
8. Expressly regulate that any fine, liabilities, penalties or damage awards owed or paid cannot be reimbursed by the public purse; nor can an individual be reimbursed by their organization for any fine, liabilities, penalties or damage awards owed or paid by the individual; nor can any fine, liabilities, penalties or damage awards owed or paid be considered as a valid cost in calculating COP (Cost of Production), reasonable profit, overhead, levies, or other fee that gets passed on to downstream customers or retail consumers;
9. Expressly regulate that any interested party can complain and/or appeal against the actions and/or inactions on these 10 issues by all parties who are created or regulated;
10. Expressly regulate mandatory pro-active and ongoing disclosure in a comprehensive and timely manner by all parties who are created or regulated, so as to publicly disclose all potential conflicts of interest, and be fully open, transparent, and accountable; including but not limited to the internal and external quality & risk management audits.

This 10 step proposal will ensure that CAFO Supply Management farmers and Big Food must act responsibly, or suffer the consequences.  Canadians who are injured by the reckless Supply Management system can be reasonably compensated for the wrongful actions of these reckless multi-millionaires who endanger all of us.

Let it be so.

No Antibiotics Ever

The millionaire owners of chicken factories are learning new propaganda techniques to continue their steady march to the Billionaire's Club.  Propaganda is cheaper and easier than true change for the better.

There is growing awareness by the public of antibiotic resistance in the food chain and factory farms, and it is being rejected by more and more consumers.  That's why propaganda is the weapon of choice to calm the masses, distracting them into falling back to sleep.

Perdue is #3 in the USA

Perdue Foods Inc. is a privately held poultry company.  Perdue has 8% share in the US poultry market, 3rd biggest after Pilgrim's Pride and Tyson's Foods.

Perdue recently announced their perfection of a method for vaccinating all eggs to be hatched for meat birds without injecting antibiotics into the eggs before they hatch.  It's easier, faster, and cheaper to vaccinate eggs, rather than vaccinating live, squirming chicks who just hatched.

While it may be easier, is it morally right, ethical, and acceptable to inject eggs with whatever drugs, chemicals, and Frankenstein broth the chicken factory owners decides will maximize their profits?

How the Chicken Factory System Works Today

There is a growing use of vaccines in the chicken factories so as to cut the risk for chicken farmers.  Without vaccines, their questionable factory farming practices have significant risk of a major disease outbreak that will decimate the flocks, cutting profits.  A second problem is the variability in the growth rate of the chickens.  Chicken factories prefer that every chicken is like a clone of the other million birds; all of whom behave exactly the same, grow at the same rate, eat the same amount as every other bird; zero variability.  With zero variability, the mad scientists employed by the chicken factories can optimize the chicken factory so that it maximizes their employer's profits, earning a fat bonus for the mad scientists.

However, I say that life is all about variability and diversity.  The mad scientists at chicken factories disagree.

The mad scientists want a chicken factory to behave just like a robotized, computerized manufacturing plant that make widgits.

The chicken factory owners, the bosses of these mad scientists, seek maximum profits regardless of what it does to the chickens, or the meat that is produced by those chickens.

If necessary, the legions of lobbyists who work for the chicken factory owners will get the regulations changed again and again so that it is legal to do what has been found to be more profitable.

That's how the chicken system has worked for the last 50 years.

New Rules ?

Is Perdue out to change the rules?

As the #3 chicken producer, perhaps Perdue plan to become #1 by giving consumers what they truly want and need; wholesome, affordable chicken.

Alternatively, perhaps this is Perdue Propaganda, designed to make them look like the least obnoxious of all the chicken factories.  The "least dirty shirt" is not necessarily a clean shirt.

In April 2014, I Blogged about the CFC finally banning the injection of ceftiofur into Canadian eggs destined for chicken factory meat production.  Eleven years of hell for chicken consumers and the general public, from 2nd Quarter 2003 till the ban in May 2014 with deadly Superbug infections (and who knows what other consequences).

Perdue has now shown that if you spend the efforts to run a sanitary operation, the antibiotic injections are not needed.  Will Perdue's competitors voluntarily choose to follow in Perdue's footsteps, or will consumer's preference force them to grudgingly follow suit?

It didn't take long to find out.

"RWA" (Raised Without Antibiotics) is the latest chicken marketing siren song.  Everybody wants to use it because it allows the chicken factories to demand a higher price, and ensure quick sale of every bird that bears the RWA slogan.

It causes some to want to take the RWA label without earning it.  At least that's the claim of Perdue and Sanderson Farms (5% market share, #5 is the USA).  Perdue and Sanderson Farms are suing Tyson (#2 with 20% market share) for using RWA on their chickens, when Tyson is alleged to dose their chickens with ionofors, chemicals used to prevent or control necrotic enteritis and/or coccideosis; both of which run rampant in chicken factories, not so much of a problem in small flock poultry farms.

When the Titans start battling in court, the documents start being filed to justify their positions.  That's when the public finally learns what has really been going on behind the curtain.  Hopefully we will learn more and more just how crazy chicken factories have become.

Perhaps this growing awareness will allow consumers to say "A Pox on All their Houses", reject all chicken factory operations under their current definition, and return to the sanity of small flock poultry production from somebody in their local community; rather than a chicken factory a continent away.

Finally! CFC Bans Ceftiofur Injections in Eggs & Chicks

The use of the powerful antibiotic Ceftiofur in chicks and eggs has finally been banned by Chicken Farmers of Canada ("CFC").  CFC's new rule takes effect on May 15th 2014.

CFC's private glacier must have melted a little recently.   CFC, long ago frozen in administrative suspended animation, has finally decided to act for the good of Canadians.  Previously, it seemed as if CFC would rather focus their efforts on themselves and their millionaire, greedy chicken farmer stakeholders.

My heartfelt congratulations to CFC for joining the rest of us who live in the real world, rather than CFC's delusional and self-serving assumptions.

Chicken farmers have a long history, over 60 years, of using drugs, chemical, and yes, even poisonous and cancer-causing arsenic in the chicken feed and water supply for their factory farmed foul chickens,  This crazy scheme of the Chicken Mafia helps them to maximize their profits and reduce their business risk; regardless of the possible impact on people who would eventually eat their chicken as food.  Sounds crazy, but it's true.

For ceftiofur, factory chicken farmers ordered the hatcheries to have robots inject ceftiofur into millions of hatching eggs so that the chickens would be tainted before they were born.  In other cases, the newly hatched chicks were sexed, then injected with their vile antibiotic fluid so as to maximize their profits and minimize their business risks.

Once Public Health Canada identified the rising tide of superbugs in retail chicken, all broiler chicken hatcheries in Québec voluntarily stopped all use of ceftiofur in February 2005.  The superbug incidence rate started dropping shortly after this voluntary ban.  The hatcheries ended their voluntary ban, and the superbugs on retail chicken were back soon thereafter.

I previously reported on, complained, and warned about these issues as early as March 2, 2013 which is just 3 days after starting this Blog (see Eating Farm Gate Chicken? ).  This Blog's all time winning Blog post for reader activity is Choose: Frankenstein Chicken, or Naturally Raised Chicken? from April 2, 2013.  Also see here, here, here, here, here, and here.  Do you think any of that commentary helped throw CFC over the cliff to abandon their foolish scheme?

Naw, I doubt it.

Is Quebec an isolated case?  No, it's Canada-wide.  Dr. Nancy de With, DVM MSc, Epidemiologist with BC Ministry of Agriculture and Lands gave a talk on this very subject on April 18, 2006 called "Antibiotic resistance of enteric bacteria in commercial broiler chickens in the Fraser Valley, BC" (original MS Powerpoint slides), or a DocStoc on-line version. Here is Slide 16 which shows up to 96% of the samples of the chicken's intestinal bacteria having SuperBug resistance to Class I (very high importance for humans), II (high importance for humans), or III (medium importance for humans) human antibiotics.

Broiler Chicken Bacteria have gained significant resistance to human antibiotics, likely due to the chronic
use of antibiotics to inject eggs, in the feed, and the water of chicken factories so as to maximize the profits
and reduce the business risk of millionaire chicken producers, regardless of the cost and risk to the public.

Unfortunately, all of these antibiotics, drugs, and chemicals in the feed &/or water fed to factory farmed foul chickens have created superbugs on retail chicken sold in grocery stores.

In 2010, Public Health Canada reported an extremely strong linkage (ie. the correlation describes 90% of all variation between ceftiofur-resistant Salmonella enterica serovar Heidelberg isolated from retail raw chicken and incidence of ceftiofur-resistant Salmonella serovar Heidelberg infections in humans across Canada.

Most people think of hospitals when they think of exposure to superbugs (ie. nosocomial infections ); some that cause life-long infections, or death.  However, today it is likely that the raw chicken in the grocery store is the greater threat, not hospitals.

The majority of households do not have repeated visits to the hospitals; most people are generally healthy.  However, virtually every family makes a weekly trip to the grocery store.  The higher frequency of exposure via the grocery store may make this the #1 risk to your family from Superbugs.

You may be a vegetarian, and never go near meat.  I hope you don't think that being a vegetarian will protect you from a Superbug infection originating from raw chicken?

Most people eat meat, and after they touch packages of raw chicken, they touch just about everything else in the grocery store that vegetarians and everybody else touches too; like the grocery carts, food display cases, and the handles on the freezer cases in the grocery stores.  Now that you also touched those same surfaces, that Superbug slime from the chicken wrapper is all over your hands too.  You'd better be careful what you touch next.

Oops!  You touched your lettuce in your cart when you re-adjusted its position so it wouldn't get squished by your other groceries.  The lettuce is now contaminated with chicken Superbug ooze, and those Superbugs won't fully wash off even if rinsed under running water at home.  Your salad now has an extra, secret ingredient that you did not intend to add.  Say thank-you to the Canadian factory farmed foul (chicken).

This story was initially broke by Margaret Munro's story in The StarPhoenix and/or O.Canada.com  (more comprehensive version).  Click the link and read the excellent history that puts the "smoking gun" in the hands of the CFC, while they stand over the dead bodies of their alleged victims, the Canadian public).  These stories seems to have been based on a related story in the Ottawa Citizen.

Ceftiofur antibiotic use causes the corresponding growth of superbugs
on chicken, and in human infections.  Quebec banned the use of
ceftiofur in chickens, and the superbug problem disappeared; first on the
chicken, then in humans, so Quebec allowed ceftiofur to start being used again.
The superbugs soon came back again, so Quebec banned ceftiofur  again.
Meanwhile in Ontario (also a superbug hotspot), neither the Ontario
government nor CFO did anything, as usual.  Above graph is from
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2871348/

The Canadian Veterinary Journal and Public Health Canada sheds some additional light on the subject here, here, here, here, here and  here.  Here is the graph showing the Superbug hotspot data from Quebec and Ontario.

Searching CFC's website for "ceftiofur" so as to confirm this news flash yields nothing.  Searching for "antibiotic" gives CFC's standard propaganda justifying their fossilization and suspended animation of their self-serving and wrong headed policy on the permitted and recommended use of antibiotics to maximize chicken farmer profits; in spite of the growing evidence of their wrong-headed policies.
After May 15th, it is hoped that CFC and all other SM Mafia personnel will actually audit their henchmen to ensure their compliance with the new rules.  The greatest risk of all is some renegade chicken farmers who are greedy enough to continue buying their drug of choice on the black market, or ordering their corporate veterinarian to prescribe the drug of choice, or personally importing it, and feeding it to their flocks; callously continuing the risk for Canadian consumers.

US Centre for Disease Control released the following video in Sept. 2013 about antibiotic resistant diseases spreading throughout North America.


In the interim, here are SFPFC's recommendations to protect yourself from chicken superbugs in the grocery store and when you bring them home to your unsuspecting, innocent family members.

So CFC finally took action on this huge Superbug risk. Why did CFC take this action now?

Was it the end consumer's demands for change?  Was it CFC's deep empathy and caring for the needs and priorities of these potential victims of CFC's crazy plans?

Don't make me laugh!

CFC is a narcissistic organization, like the rest of the Chicken Mafia (see Individual and Organizational Narcissism ).

Narcissistic organizations tend not to identify and correct their previous errors.

I can only assume that behind the scenes, the Chief Vets of the Provinces and Federal Government, and/or Health Canada and Public Health Canada twisted CFC's arm, by saying "Take appropriate action to this threat to public health, or else!".

Maybe someday, we will know for sure.

Will CFC give Canadians their assurance that they will adequately police their members and ensure Mafia-style compliance with the Chicken Mafia Don's orders against the use of banned antibiotics?

If CFC is unwilling or unable to give us that assurance of comprehensive auditing to ensure compliance, then their banning of ceftiofur is a mere smokescreen to distract and mislead Canadians; true to their narcissistic character.

Don't hold your breath.