Simply touching this chicken can put you at risk of a deadly infection
Before long, we may have to wear a hazmat suit to make dinner.
A just-out study has found a new — and potentially deadly — strain of MRSA in supermarket chicken.
Only last week I warned you about how superbugs are killing thousands every year in the U.S., and how the FDA dropped the ball where protecting us is concerned.
But this new research paints the clearest picture yet of why we need to immediately start taking some simple but urgent steps to look out for our own safety.
An international coalition of researchers has just explained how this antibiotic-resistant superbug crisis could explode beyond our wildest dreams.
They studied a group of people, “everyday consumers” as they called them, and identified ten who were infected with a new strain of MRSA (the short way to say Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a very hard to treat bacterial infection). That’s bad, but it’s not terribly remarkable.
But here’s what is.
The kind of MRSA they identified these people as having is typically associated with individuals who come into direct contact with live chickens, such as farmers and veterinarians. But the people who had the infections weren’t exposed to any farm animals.
The researchers said that their study shows how people can contract this potentially deadly strain of MRSA simply by eating or handling infected poultry.
Jesper Larsen, a veterinarian and lead author of the study, said that this new type of MRSA appears to be able to spread “from food to people.”
Now, the ones who were infected with MRSA all lived in Denmark. But don’t let that make you feel any safer.
As one of the researchers said, “Superbugs don’t respect political or geographical boundaries.”
And that was proven to be very true just a few years ago.
The incident I’m about to tell you was given so little attention by the mainstream media that you might not even remember it. Five years ago MRSA was also detected in poultry — but that was in Detroit, not Denmark.
It was mentioned in the CDC’s official journal, aptly named Emerging and Infectious Diseases, something only a specialist or researcher would be reading. But some of the news did leak out to the mainstream.
And it was squashed about as fast as you can say MRSA.
First, experts rushed in to give sound bites about how safe our food supply is and why we shouldn’t worry. Heck, our food is already known to be contaminated with salmonella and E. coli, so what’s a little MRSA on your plate!
Then, the authors of the CDC paper said that the most important “thing in this study” is “we don’t want to scare people.” It was as if they wish they hadn’t found out about it.
Well, I’m sorry, but we need to be scared about this. Very scared.
Having MRSA on your chicken actually makes handling it more dangerous than eating it. That’s because MRSA thrives on skin cuts and scrapes. I’m sure you know about MRSA hospital infections. Well, now we can add to that list MRSA supermarket infections.
And MRSA can lead to pneumonia and even deadly sepsis.
As another one of the researchers said, the study shows how “everyday consumers” can be at risk. So yeah, I’d say scared is exactly what we — and the FDA and the CDC and every other consumer protection agency out there — should be.
As I said last week, buying organic poultry is one thing we can do to protect ourselves and our loved ones. Another is to wash our hands frequently.
But perhaps the best precaution you can take where MRSA and chickens are concerned is this — if you have any scrapes or cuts on your hands be sure to wear disposable gloves when handling raw poultry.
Sources:
“Superbug MRSA may be spreading thorough contaminated poultry” George Washington University, September 21, 2016, ScienceDaily, sciencedaily.com
