Half Of Supermarket Chickens Carry "Superbug" -- Factory Farms Blamed

Consumer Reports tested hundreds of samples of chicken bought at supermarkets across the country, and found something very unwelcome:

We found at least one multidrug-resistant pathogen on about half of samples and at least two multidrug-resistant pathogens on almost 12 percent of samples we tested.

"Multidrug-resistant pathogen" is another term for "superbug," the mutated bacteria that have developed thanks to our excessive use of antibiotics. We use harsher drugs to kill bacteria, so the bacteria evolves to withstand it. Then we're forced to use even harsher drugs, and the cycle continues.

The antibiotics responsible for the rise of superbugs are used to keep factory-farmed chickens alive and growing in unnatural ways in confining and often grim conditions. The FDA just this week, in fact, acted to phase out the use of these antibiotics. Notably, Consumer Reports compared the tested supermarket chickens, which come almost exclusively from factory farms, to those from more chicken-friendly, organic farms like White Oak Pastures Farm in Georgia, which raises chickens in the open, on pasture, and has no need for antibiotics--and its chickens have no superbugs.