Today, large-scale poultry production has precious little to do with green fields and ruddy-cheeked farmers. Every year, more than 40 billion chickens are slaughtered worldwide for meat, the vast majority of them intensively factory-farmed.
They are often also dosed up with antibiotics — a preventative measure that is easier and cheaper than dealing with individual illnesses at a later date. Now experts are warning that the overuse of antibiotics in poultry farms around the world is creating a generation of superbugs that are resistant to treatment by virtually every drug in the medical establishment’s armoury.
With up to 80 per cent of the raw chicken on sale in some countries carrying these resistant bacteria, they can be transferred to humans during the handling of infected meat or the eating of undercooked produce.
Read How drugs pumped into supermarket chickens pose a terrifying threat to our health
by Tom Rawstorne, London Daily Mail, 10 August 2013.
