Illegal Drugs in Chicken Feathers
Channel: NutritionFacts.org
Date: 2014-08-11

By testing chicken feathers for chemical residues, researchers aim to find out what the poultry industry is feeding their birds. The presence of banned drugs and a broad range of pharmaceuticals raises concern, recalling the time in which DES was fed to chickens for years after it was shown to cause human vagina cancer.

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I guess we shouldn’t be surprised by anything coming from an industry that fed chickens literally millions of pounds of arsenic-containing drugs. See Arsenic in Chicken (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/arsenic-in-chicken) and my follow-up, How Many Cancers Have Been Caused in Arsenic-Laced Chicken? (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/how-many-cancers-have-been-caused-by-arsenic-laced-chicken/)

The drugs fed to chickens are one reason used to explain why poultry has been tied to increased cancer risk. See Chicken Dioxins, Viruses, or Antibiotics? (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/chicken-dioxins-viruses-or-antibiotics/)

The most concerning drugs currently in the U.S. poultry supply are the antibiotics. See, for example:
• Lowering Dietary Antibiotic Intake (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/lowering-dietary-antibiotic-intake/)
• More Antibiotics in White Meat or Dark Meat? (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/more-antibiotics-in-white-meat-or-dark-meat/)
• Meat Mythcrushers (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/meat-mythcrushers/)
• Past the Age of Miracles: Facing a Post-Antibiotic Age (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/past-the-age-of-miracles-facing-a-post-antibiotic-age/)
• Superbugs in Conventional vs. Organic Chicken (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/superbugs-in-conventional-vs-organic-chicken/)

Ironically, not only may antibiotics in chicken contribute to antibiotic resistant infections, but to the infections in the first place. Check out my video Avoiding Chicken to Avoid Bladder Infections (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/avoiding-chicken-to-avoid-bladder-infections/).

Then as if adding potentially harmful chemicals to the chickens themselves wasn’t bad enough, more are added in the processing plant: Phosphate Additives in Chicken (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/phosphate-additives-in-chicken).

Have a question for Dr. Greger about this video? Leave it in the comment section at http://nutritionfacts.org/video/illegal-drugs-in-chicken-feathers/ and he'll try to answer it!

Image Credit: Thomas Kriese via Flickr.

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