Improperly Cooked Chicken Can Cause Severe Illness, Death

Instead
of giving you a nutritious meal, a simple chicken dinner could give you
food poisoning that could cause serious health problems for the rest of
your life or even kill you.

Consumer Reports recently tested a
large sample of chickens purchased across the country to see whether the
meat contained the two leading bacterial causes of food
poisoning—campylobacter or salmonella. According to government
statistics, those two bacteria are responsible for sickening about 3.5
million Americans a year, and more than 700 people die each year from
one of those illnesses.

Chickens can become contaminated in
several ways, by pecking at droppings that carry germs, eating insects
that have picked up bacteria, or drinking contaminated water. Both
salmonella and campylobacter flourish in the intestines of the birds and
spread throughout flocks. Although there are many measures in place to
limit concentrations of bacteria in chicken houses, bacteria in a
chicken’s digestive tract can wind up on its carcass when it is
slaughtered, buried inside feather follicles on the skin.

When
contaminated chickens are delivered to supermarkets, the problems can
get even worse. Any mishandling, improper storage, or incorrect cooking
method, and the risks of food poisoning are multiplied. Both salmonella
and campylobacter can cause diarrhea, bloating, nausea, and vomiting,
and campylobacter can also lead to arthritis, meningitis, and
Guillain-Barre syndrome, a neurological disease. According to the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control, the rate of laboratory-confirmed food
poisonings has decreased since 2001, but the numbers are not accurate
because only a small percentage of foodborne illnesses are reported to
public health authorities.

Consumer Reports tested a nationwide
sample of chickens in 2003 and found that 49% tested positive for one or
both bacteria. Since that time, leading chicken producers have
stabilized the incidence of salmonella, but the presence of
campylobacter has increased at a startling rate. The recent study found
that 83% harbored campylobacter or salmonella. Although the U.S.
Department of Agriculture regularly tests chickens for salmonella
against a federal standard, there has not been a standard set for
campylobacter.

It is becoming increasingly important for
consumers to take steps to protect themselves against food poisoning by
cooking chicken safely and thoroughly, and guarding against
cross-contamination. Moreover, most of the bacteria Consumer Reports
found in contaminated chicken showed resistance to one or more
antibiotics, including some prescribed to humans to treat infections and
some fed to chickens to speed their growth. So some people who become
sick by eating contaminated chicken may have to try several antibiotics
before finding one that works.

In the largest national analysis
of contamination and antibiotic resistance in store-bought chicken ever
published, Consumer Reports tested 525 fresh broilers in 23 states last
spring. Four leading brands (Foster Farms, Perdue, Tyson, and Pilgrim’s
Pride) were represented in the test, including 10 organic and 12
non-organic no-antibiotics brands, including three that are processed
using an "air chilled" slaughterhouse process designed to reduce
contamination. Findings from the report were startling:

Campylobacter was present in 81% of the chickens, salmonella in 15%;
both bacteria in 13%. Only 17% had neither pathogen—the lowest
percentage of clean birds in all four of tests Consumer Reports has
performed since 1998.
No major brand was cleaner than others
overall. Foster Farms, Pilgrim’s Pride, and Tyson chickens were lower in
salmonella incidence than Perdue, but they were higher in
campylobacter.
Most premium chickens had high rates of
contamination, but as in previous Consumer Reports tests, Ranger—a
no-antibiotics brand sold in the Northwest—was extremely clean. Of the
10 samples analyzed, none had salmonella, and only two had
campylobacter.
Among all brands, 84% of the salmonella and 67% of
the campylobacter organisms analyzed showed resistance to one or more
antibiotics.

The bottom line is that consumers are
responsible for protecting themselves, and an ounce of prevention is
worth a pound of cure:

Make raw chicken one of the last items
you pick up at the grocery store. Be sure it is well-wrapped and kept
in a plastic bag, to keep juices from leaking out onto other food.

Raw chicken should be stored in a refrigerator set to 40 degrees or
lower. If it is not used within a couple of days, it should be frozen
until it is used.
Thaw frozen chicken in a refrigerator, in its
original packaging or on a plate, or on a plate in a microwave oven. If
chicken is thawed in a microwave, it should be cooked right away.
Refrigerate or freeze leftovers within two hours of cooking.
Don’t return cooked meat to the same plate that held it raw.
Keep raw chicken away from other foods. Immediately after preparing
it, wash your hands with soap and water and clean anything that you or
the raw chicken touched.
When frying, broiling, or grilling
chicken, don’t use the same implement to turn it throughout the cooking
process. After the outside is thoroughly cooked, switch to a clean
utensil so the cooked chicken will not be touched by any juices from the
raw chicken that are on the cooking utensil you were using when the
chicken was raw.
Most importantly, to kill harmful bacteria, cook chicken to an internal temperature of at least 165 degrees.