Poultry workers exposed to drug-resistant bacteria

Sunday, 23 December, 2007

Poultry workers in the United States are 32 times more likely to carry drug-resistant E. coli bacteria than others outside the poultry industry, according to a recent study conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

While drug-resistant bacteria, such as E. coli, are common in the industrial broiler chicken environment, this is the first US research to show exposure occurring at a high level among industrial poultry workers.

The results are published in the December 2007 edition of Environmental Health Perspectives.

"The use of antimicrobials in industrial food production has been going on for over 50 years in the United States," said the study's lead author, Lance Price, a scientific advisor to the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future.

"Some estimates indicate that well over half of the antimicrobial drugs produced in the United States are used in food animal production. In the US alone, over nine billion food animals are produced annually."

The study was conducted with poultry workers and community residents in the eastern shore regions of Maryland and Virginia, which are among the top broiler chicken producing regions in the US, producing more than 600 million chickens annually.

It confirms similar studies in Europe showing that poultry farmers and workers are at risk of exposure to drug-resistant E. coli.

"One of the major implications of this study is to underscore the importance of the non-hospital environment in the origin of drug-resistant infections," said Ellen Silbergeld, senior author of the study.

The researchers note that as food animal production shifted from the independent farmer to large-scale, industrialised operations, the use of antimicrobials in feeds has increased. Currently, 16 different antimicrobial drugs are approved for use in US poultry production, with gentamicin reported to be the most prevalent.

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