Chicken and Turkey Products Promote Antibiotic Resistance

Every year, the Food and Drug Administration releases a report on pathogens in meat products and how many are resistant to antibiotics. This year, the FDA found that 74 percent of bacterially tainted chicken products harbored germs that were resistant to one or more types of antibiotics. For turkey products, more than three-quarters contained E. coli, and of those samples, 75 percent were resistant to one or more types of antibiotics. The report noted that 30.3 million pounds of antibiotics were sold and used in livestock feed, a 2.1 percent increase from 2010.