Representative Louise Slaughter (D-NY), the only microbiologist in Congress, issued a statement about the Foster Farms chicken Salmonella outbreak that has sickened 278 people in 17 states with a “staggering” hospitalization rate of 42%.. She said, “This is our country’s worst nightmare – a massive outbreak of antibiotic-resistant Salmonella – and it’s made even worse by a reckless Republican shutdown that locked most of the Centers for Disease Control out of their offices.
“The frontline antibiotics we desperately need to treat this outbreak have been rendered ineffective by overuse on the farm, which is why once and for all we must ban the use of antibiotics in food animals unless the animals are sick. Congress must pass my legislation to end the needless overuse of antibiotics on the farm, and I call on all my colleagues to join the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act to protect the antibiotics we have left.”
This outbreak consists of seven separate strains of Salmonella Heidelberg. The strains are quite virulent, since many are hospitalized and 13% of the patients have developed Salmonella septicemia – a serious infection of the entire body. Patients with that disease may have to have drug therapy for the rest of their lives to prevent relapses. And in the elderly, Salmonella septicemia has a 15% mortality rate.
Representative Slaughter’s statement continues by stating that “the situation has been exacerbated by the Republican government shutdown, as furloughs and funding restrictions at the USDA, the CDC, and the FDA have handcuffed the agencies’ ability to track the outbreak and respond to the crisis. On October 10, 2013, the CDC called personnel who had been furloughed back to work to deal with the outbreak.”
If you have eaten Foster Farms chicken and have been experiencing the symptoms of a Salmonella infection, including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea that may be bloody, abdominal cramps, and fever, see your doctor as soon as possible. This is a serious outbreak. In addition, the long term consequences of a Salmonella infection can be severe, including myocarditis and reactive arthritis.
