Playing Chicken With Chicken

Credited with nearly one million cases of food poisoning each year in the United States alone (1), it’s no surprise that Campylobacter species are the major causes of foodborne gastroenteritis worldwide. Perhaps less well known is the fact that the species responsible for most human disease, C. jejuni and C. coli, are rapidly increasing their ability to resist antibiotics. This is a major problem: with Campylobacter contamination present on an estimated half of commercially available chickens (2), and over half of those bacteria resistant to common drugs like ciprofloxacin and nalidixic acid, it’s becoming more and more difficult to treat cases of campylobacteriosis.

The increase in resistance is at least partly due to the routine use of fluoroquinolone antibiotics in poultry farming. The drugs are used to treat or even prevent disease in chickens raised in crowded environments, where a single outbreak of infection can result in significant cost to the farm. But they’re also used to treat food poisoning in human patients – and if farming practices render the bacteria resistant to fluoroquinolones, doctors will lose one of their best options for eliminating human intestinal infections.

What can be done? Some countries, including the United States and Australia, ban the drugs completely in the poultry industry. In those that don’t already have a ban in place, experts recommend that fluoroquinolone use be phased out. Organizations like the British Poultry Council have declared a commitment to reducing antibiotic use, and state that it’s already decreasing (3) – so hopefully, C. jejuni and C. coli will escape their fate as an object lesson in the effect that agricultural overprescription can have on human disease…