Everyone loves chicken, roasted or fried. Chicken is a popular delicacy all over the world. Most people prefer chicken to beef because white meat is healthier than red meat. However, recent research discovered a link between bacteria on meat and a type of urinary infection in people. This research results grabbed a lot of media and public attention. To top it up, Canadian researchers recently discovered some type of similarities between E coli in animals and the E coli that cause urinary tract infections in people (UTIs). One of the findings that were discovered was that poultry have the highest level of E coli than any other animal meat.

These infections have become one of the most common types of infections that are spreading among people as found in the health visits to health care facilities. It takes the number two position of the most common infections. Doctors have been looking into the reasons why this drug resistant bacterium is becoming prevalent among the population.

One of the reasons that have come up is the rise of the use of antibiotics in agriculture and livestock. Despite a strict policy on the use of antibiotics in animals, many livestock farmers have not heeded the warnings and are still distributing animals and especially chickens, with high traces of antibiotic content. This, coupled with the fact that because chicken has a low fat content and is also of low cost compared to meat like beef, has contributed to the high spread of the E coli bacterium among many Americans. These findings beg the question, should people stop eating chicken? Are there any food safety measures being taken to deal with this problem?