Friday, April 13, 2012
E. coli
A sampling of raw chicken sold in grocery stores across the United States revealed nearly half of the meat contained the bacteria E. coli.
According to the group that conducted the study, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, the presence of E. coli indicated the chicken was contaminated by feces.
The contamination was found in 48% of 120 chicken products bought in 10 major cities.
Dr. Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia, dismissed the findings because of the small sample size and because the kind of E. coli found was not considered a threat to public health.
“What’s surprising to me is that they didn’t find more,” Doyle told The New York Times. “Poop gets into your food, and not just into meat—produce is grown in soil fertilized with manure, and there’s E. coli in that, too.”
Between eight and nine billion chickens are killed for food each year in the United States.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
To Learn More:
Fecal Contamination in Retail Chicken Products (Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine)
48% of Chicken in Small Sample Has E. Coli (by Stephanie Strom, New York Times)
Food Safety Inspectors Object to Allowing Poultry Companies to do Their Own Inspections(by David Wallechinsky and Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
USDA Criticizes Ground Beef Testing for E. Coli (by Noel Brinkerhoff and David Wallechinsky, AllGov)
E.Coli Recalls (E.coli Blog)
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