The chicken industry is nervously watching consumer reaction to a national television investigative exposé that linked antibiotic use on chicken farms to a growing public health threat.
CBC’sMarketplacereported in a recent episode titled Superbugs in the Supermarket that 75 of 100 chicken packages from supermarkets across Canada tested positive for antibiotic-resistant superbugs that can make people sick.
The TV show linked the growth of superbugs in part to a chicken industry practice of using antibiotics on most flocks of chicks to keep them healthy and speed up their growth so that they are ready for market within five or six weeks.
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Mike Dungate, executive director of Chicken Farmers of Canada, disputed some of theMarketplaceconclusions but conceded the industry is part of the problem and is working on ways to reduce antibiotic use.
The organization is also monitoring consumer reaction.
“There’s a concern out there about it,” he said. “But people still say they are going to eat chicken.”
He said CFC did a consumer survey before the televised story aired and planned another last week “to see what the initial reaction is.”
Dungate said he expects the impact on chicken to be minimal.
However, if that assumption proves to be wrong, the chicken industry may have to respond with information challenging the CBC conclusions and noting the priority that it places on reducing antibiotic use.
“We will know we’ll have to get out there with consumer messaging,” he said. “We want to be sure we are doing the right things to meet the consumer expectations around a safe healthy product.”
Dungate said the CBC report did not prove a “direct causal link” between farm antibiotic use and the development of antibiotic-resistant disease strains.
However, he said the industry has made the issue a top priority, investing $5 million over the past seven years and developing a five-point plan to reduce antibiotic use.
“While there isn’t what I call conclusive proof (of a link between farm use and human infection), there is enough out there that with use of any antibiotic, whether in human medicine or for animal medicine, you’re going to create a better opportunity for resistance to occur,” Dungate said. “There are lots of potential sources. Everybody along the chain has to be vigilant.
He said the industry is willing to change.
“From a precaution perspective, if we can use alternatives, if we can use class four antibiotics rather than class one or two that are important for human medicine, then we’ll try to do that.”
Marketplacesaid the indiscriminate use of antibiotics in chicken flocks, including for healthy chicks, is a major cause of antibiotic resistant strains of disease.
Dungate said the chicken industry’s antibiotic use is driven by the need to keep flocks healthy and to have chicks reach market weight within six weeks.
“By doing that, you promote growth,” he said.
“With the short growth cycle, you want to do that as early as possible. We really don’t in our production cycle have the option of a flock that’s getting sick and trying to rehabilitate a flock.”
NDP MP Megan Leslie told the House of Commons last week that it is a failure of public health policy by the government. The European Union has banned unnecessary use of antibiotics.
Agriculture minister Gerry Ritz said chicken sold to Canadians is safe and does not contain antibiotics.
“CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency) regularly tests meat and poultry entering the food supply for antibiotics,” he said.
“The compliance rate for chicken is 100 percent. The last time I checked, that is pretty good.”
