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Plucked!: The Truth About Chicken
'This is an important book. You can't understand the radical cheapening of food, with all its unpleasant effects, for farm animals and our most cherished rural landscapes, until you begin to understand the industrialisation of chicken. Industrial chicken is now displacing many more sustainable farming systems, driving them out of business. This book explains how that happened and why we should all be worried about it and demand change' James Rebanks, author of The Shepherd's Life
Plucked! examines everything that has gone wrong in the modern agricultural system: overuse of antibiotics, threats to the environment, violations of animal welfare, destruction of farming communities, disruption of international trade and delivery of over-processed, obesity-promoting, nutritionally hollow food.
Drawing on years of research into the 'big chicken' industry, acclaimed science writer Maryn McKenna uncovers the people searching for solutions and seeking to return chicken to a sustainable and honoured place on our plate and asking whether, with reform, chicken can safely feed the world. Rich with characters who together propelled the story of chicken's unintended consequences, Plucked! will reveal how the antibiotic era created modern agriculture. It is an eye-opening exploration of how the world's most popular meat came to define so much more than just chicken nuggets.
400 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 12, 2017
141 people are currently reading
4089 people want to read
About the author
Maryn McKenna
5 books112 followersMaryn McKenna is a journalist and author who specializes in public health, global health and food policy.
She has reported from epidemics and disasters, and farms and food production sites, on most of the continents, including a field hospital in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, a Thai village erased by the Indian Ocean tsunami, a bird-testing unit on the front lines of West Nile virus, an Arctic graveyard of the victims of the 1918 flu, an AIDS treatment center in Yunnan, a polio-eradication team in India, breweries in France, a “Matrix for chickens” in the Netherlands, and the Midwestern farms devastated by the 2015 epidemic of avian flu.
She writes about science and food for The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, NPR, Newsweek, Vice, FiveThirtyEight, Wired, Scientific American, Slate, Modern Farmer, Nature, The Atlantic, and The Guardian. She is the author of the award-winning books SUPERBUG and BEATING BACK THE DEVIL, and is a Senior Fellow of the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University and a frequent radio guest. Her 2015 TED talk, "What do we do when antibiotics don't work any more?", has been viewed more than 1.5 million times.
She has reported from epidemics and disasters, and farms and food production sites, on most of the continents, including a field hospital in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, a Thai village erased by the Indian Ocean tsunami, a bird-testing unit on the front lines of West Nile virus, an Arctic graveyard of the victims of the 1918 flu, an AIDS treatment center in Yunnan, a polio-eradication team in India, breweries in France, a “Matrix for chickens” in the Netherlands, and the Midwestern farms devastated by the 2015 epidemic of avian flu.
She writes about science and food for The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, NPR, Newsweek, Vice, FiveThirtyEight, Wired, Scientific American, Slate, Modern Farmer, Nature, The Atlantic, and The Guardian. She is the author of the award-winning books SUPERBUG and BEATING BACK THE DEVIL, and is a Senior Fellow of the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University and a frequent radio guest. Her 2015 TED talk, "What do we do when antibiotics don't work any more?", has been viewed more than 1.5 million times.
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January 21, 2018
At this moment, most meat animals, across most of the planet, are raised with the assistance of doses of antibiotics on most days or their lives: 63,151 tons of antibiotics per year, about 126 million pounds. Farmers began using the drugs because antibiotics allowed animals to convert feed to tasty muscle more efficiently; when that result made it irresistible to pack more livestock into barns, antibiotics protected animals against the likelihood of disease.
-from BIG CHICKEN, Maryn McKenna
Who should read this book:
Legislators, policy makers (especially in the food industry), and the millions of people who eat the standard American diet of lots of chicken and animal products.
Who will read this book:
People who have switched to only local organic meat, people who don’t eat meat at all, scientists and consumer advocates already aware of the problem.
Like so many issues involving the food industry, the misuse of antibiotics in agriculture is one that has serious ramifications beyond the farm, or even the individual consumer. McKenna meticulously details the parallel history of antibiotics and the discovery of their potential applications in the food industry. The author details the early objections to the reckless use of these “wonder drugs” and the ways in which objections were squelched until we get to today’s situation in which “eighty percent of antibiotics sold in the US and more than half of those sold around the world are used in animals, not in humans.”
The grimness of this situation was observed early on in both the laboratory and the field: as simple organisms, bacteria can mutate and evolve extremely quickly. When exposed to the antibiotics that are used so frequently on farmed animals to help the animals gain weight and stave off disease, the microorganisms develop resistance to the medications designed to fight them. These bacteria can (and do) go on to infect human beings.
Antibiotic-resistant infections aren’t something most of us think about until it hits home, but they cause 23,000 deaths and two million serious illnesses annually in the US alone. The individual stories McKenna collects are indeed heartbreaking. And because these infections jump not just from animal to person, but from person to person—they can infect anybody. From people who eat chicken daily to lifelong vegans, we are all at risk of being struck down by the bacteria originating in the factory farms and feedlots.
Despite this clear and present danger that transcends individual values and politics, anyone familiar with the American way of government should not be surprised at how difficult it has been for legislators to even get a clear look at the issue, let alone make laws regarding it. From early on, antibiotic use was a bonanza for the pharmaceutical and meat companies. It could be argued that they, in fact, intimately relied on each other. McKenna writes:
Antibiotics have been so difficult to root out of modern meat because, in a crucial way, they created it. The drugs made it irresistible to load more animals into barns and protected animals and their growers from the consequences of that crowding.
This, along with generous subsidies, made meat a cheap commodity that most Americans could now afford to eat daily, and often multiple times per day. And no industry has benefited more from these changes in meat production than the chicken business.
Today, a meat chicken’s slaughter weight is twice what it was 70 years ago and is achieved in half the time. Across these decades, chickens went from a scarce and expensive Sunday treat to the meat that Americans eat more often than any other…
Six weeks, a modern broiler’s age at slaughter, the author notes, would be barely preteen in a purebred chicken. Top-heavy, lethargic, and frequently suffering from a variety of production-based maladies, the modern broiler chicken is memorably compared in the text to “an olive balancing on two toothpicks.” Although not normally thought of as babies, today’s chickens are exactly that: they are younger at slaughter than either lambs or crate-raised veal calves; and their suffering and lack of motion is comparable to that of the calves in the much-despised “white” veal industry.
Although not the main focus of this book, McKenna is to be praised for bringing animal welfare concerns into the fold. While eats and describes the flavor of differently-raised chickens throughout the book, she visits chicken farmers and discusses the business with them. Some of them think “animal welfare” is just about making sure the animals have adequate feed and water and roll their eyes at any kind of enrichment or natural settings for the birds. Others are more sensitive. The author introduces a remorseful farmer who looks over his vast chicken houses and muses, “I would never say I treat my birds badly, but the way the system is set up, I can’t take good care of them…The industry says they care about animal welfare, they don’t…The image and the reality, they’re too far apart.”
Most informed adults now have at least some grasp on what “factory farming” is. Almost all US chickens (and other animals) have been raised for decades in this manner. It has made meat a cheap, universally available, and standardized product. Yes, as the author refreshingly notes, the burden of all of this doesn’t just lie on the huge, faceless corporations.
It is the foundation of the chicken economy, and it is endorsed every day by anyone who ever bought a fast-food chicken sandwich, ordered wings in a bar, or picked up an extra tray of drumsticks because a supermarket put them on sale.
Yet, food, and particularly meat, touches a nerve in people that isn’t as universally present in other controversial, daily presences in people’s lives. Even as it behaves in ways that any non-psychopath will find morally repugnant, most Americans still aggressively defend the animal agriculture industry, unlike say, the oil industry. Even the most progressive and rational thinkers will become very emotional when they think their food choices are being questioned—they appear to undergo an instantaneous lobotomy and suddenly they’re fountains of nonsense about lions, cavemen, and protein deficiency.
McKenna is the rare omnivore who is willing to look these issues in the face, and concede that both industry and individual consumers will have to make some changes. While on her travels, she visits small, free-range farms in the US and France, and contrasts the vivid differences in the way these farms operate and the way in which over 99% of American “meat” chickens are raised. Even as she praises these free-range producers and their products, she acknowledges how difficult is to actually find a farm like this:
In 1950, there were 1.6 million poultry farms in America, most of them still independent; 50 years down the road, 98 percent of them would vanish. Today, there are about 25,000 US farms raising poultry, almost all operating under contracts with the integrators that survived consolidation…
For example, the number of birds the French farm she visited produced in an entire year “could be tucked into a corner of an average American poultry property, with thousands of square feet to spare.”
Clearly, Americans cannot eat the eight billion or so chickens they consume every year being supplied by free-range model. McKenna also discusses some of the changes certain factory farms are making, usually after negotiations with animal welfare and consumer safety groups. Some companies are adding a few basic welfare measures in for the chickens, such as allowing natural sunlight to enter their sheds. Other producers have vowed to go antibiotic free, and certain food chains have got an advertising boost announcing they plan to serve antibiotic-free chicken. The author sees this as an encouraging step.
“No antibiotics” means different things to different companies. For some, it’s no antibiotics after a certain point in a chick’s short life, for others, it’s avoiding certain types of antibiotics, and for still others, it is indeed no antibiotics at all. Companies who take this step do take the risk of being called out by the various producers’ groups that still defend the antibiotic-use model. Trade groups assail individual companies, such as restaurant chains, that choose to go antibiotic free. There is still a lot of pressure and lobbying to stick to this damaging way of doing things.
While the author seems to think a combination of free-range and more responsible intensive farming is the only future for meat production in America, she ignores certain important developments and crucial issues. First off, more responsible farming costs more. Americans, millions of whom are already struggling, will have to absorb these costs. Not everyone can afford to visit boutique farms and buy heritage-breed hens, as is depicted in the pages of this book.
The experiments in “clean meat,” grown in the lab, is one of the most hopeful developments of our time. However, while lab-grown meat is still a thing of the future, plant-protein meats presently are sold in nearly every grocery and big-box store. The quality of these products has grown by leaps and bounds, to the point where they can (and do) fool omnivores. While products such as Beyond Meat may not replace chicken in every situation, it blends seamlessly into meals such as stir fry, curries, and fajitas that call for chicken breast strips. And although they may cost more than heavily-subsidized lower grade meats, vegan meats are still cheaper and easier to find than free range animal products. If more Americans switched to products like Beyond Meat chicken strips, even just some of the time, that would translate into fewer animals being crammed into the factory farms that do so much harm to us all.
-from BIG CHICKEN, Maryn McKenna
Who should read this book:
Legislators, policy makers (especially in the food industry), and the millions of people who eat the standard American diet of lots of chicken and animal products.
Who will read this book:
People who have switched to only local organic meat, people who don’t eat meat at all, scientists and consumer advocates already aware of the problem.
Like so many issues involving the food industry, the misuse of antibiotics in agriculture is one that has serious ramifications beyond the farm, or even the individual consumer. McKenna meticulously details the parallel history of antibiotics and the discovery of their potential applications in the food industry. The author details the early objections to the reckless use of these “wonder drugs” and the ways in which objections were squelched until we get to today’s situation in which “eighty percent of antibiotics sold in the US and more than half of those sold around the world are used in animals, not in humans.”
The grimness of this situation was observed early on in both the laboratory and the field: as simple organisms, bacteria can mutate and evolve extremely quickly. When exposed to the antibiotics that are used so frequently on farmed animals to help the animals gain weight and stave off disease, the microorganisms develop resistance to the medications designed to fight them. These bacteria can (and do) go on to infect human beings.
Antibiotic-resistant infections aren’t something most of us think about until it hits home, but they cause 23,000 deaths and two million serious illnesses annually in the US alone. The individual stories McKenna collects are indeed heartbreaking. And because these infections jump not just from animal to person, but from person to person—they can infect anybody. From people who eat chicken daily to lifelong vegans, we are all at risk of being struck down by the bacteria originating in the factory farms and feedlots.
Despite this clear and present danger that transcends individual values and politics, anyone familiar with the American way of government should not be surprised at how difficult it has been for legislators to even get a clear look at the issue, let alone make laws regarding it. From early on, antibiotic use was a bonanza for the pharmaceutical and meat companies. It could be argued that they, in fact, intimately relied on each other. McKenna writes:
Antibiotics have been so difficult to root out of modern meat because, in a crucial way, they created it. The drugs made it irresistible to load more animals into barns and protected animals and their growers from the consequences of that crowding.
This, along with generous subsidies, made meat a cheap commodity that most Americans could now afford to eat daily, and often multiple times per day. And no industry has benefited more from these changes in meat production than the chicken business.
Today, a meat chicken’s slaughter weight is twice what it was 70 years ago and is achieved in half the time. Across these decades, chickens went from a scarce and expensive Sunday treat to the meat that Americans eat more often than any other…
Six weeks, a modern broiler’s age at slaughter, the author notes, would be barely preteen in a purebred chicken. Top-heavy, lethargic, and frequently suffering from a variety of production-based maladies, the modern broiler chicken is memorably compared in the text to “an olive balancing on two toothpicks.” Although not normally thought of as babies, today’s chickens are exactly that: they are younger at slaughter than either lambs or crate-raised veal calves; and their suffering and lack of motion is comparable to that of the calves in the much-despised “white” veal industry.
Although not the main focus of this book, McKenna is to be praised for bringing animal welfare concerns into the fold. While eats and describes the flavor of differently-raised chickens throughout the book, she visits chicken farmers and discusses the business with them. Some of them think “animal welfare” is just about making sure the animals have adequate feed and water and roll their eyes at any kind of enrichment or natural settings for the birds. Others are more sensitive. The author introduces a remorseful farmer who looks over his vast chicken houses and muses, “I would never say I treat my birds badly, but the way the system is set up, I can’t take good care of them…The industry says they care about animal welfare, they don’t…The image and the reality, they’re too far apart.”
Most informed adults now have at least some grasp on what “factory farming” is. Almost all US chickens (and other animals) have been raised for decades in this manner. It has made meat a cheap, universally available, and standardized product. Yes, as the author refreshingly notes, the burden of all of this doesn’t just lie on the huge, faceless corporations.
It is the foundation of the chicken economy, and it is endorsed every day by anyone who ever bought a fast-food chicken sandwich, ordered wings in a bar, or picked up an extra tray of drumsticks because a supermarket put them on sale.
Yet, food, and particularly meat, touches a nerve in people that isn’t as universally present in other controversial, daily presences in people’s lives. Even as it behaves in ways that any non-psychopath will find morally repugnant, most Americans still aggressively defend the animal agriculture industry, unlike say, the oil industry. Even the most progressive and rational thinkers will become very emotional when they think their food choices are being questioned—they appear to undergo an instantaneous lobotomy and suddenly they’re fountains of nonsense about lions, cavemen, and protein deficiency.
McKenna is the rare omnivore who is willing to look these issues in the face, and concede that both industry and individual consumers will have to make some changes. While on her travels, she visits small, free-range farms in the US and France, and contrasts the vivid differences in the way these farms operate and the way in which over 99% of American “meat” chickens are raised. Even as she praises these free-range producers and their products, she acknowledges how difficult is to actually find a farm like this:
In 1950, there were 1.6 million poultry farms in America, most of them still independent; 50 years down the road, 98 percent of them would vanish. Today, there are about 25,000 US farms raising poultry, almost all operating under contracts with the integrators that survived consolidation…
For example, the number of birds the French farm she visited produced in an entire year “could be tucked into a corner of an average American poultry property, with thousands of square feet to spare.”
Clearly, Americans cannot eat the eight billion or so chickens they consume every year being supplied by free-range model. McKenna also discusses some of the changes certain factory farms are making, usually after negotiations with animal welfare and consumer safety groups. Some companies are adding a few basic welfare measures in for the chickens, such as allowing natural sunlight to enter their sheds. Other producers have vowed to go antibiotic free, and certain food chains have got an advertising boost announcing they plan to serve antibiotic-free chicken. The author sees this as an encouraging step.
“No antibiotics” means different things to different companies. For some, it’s no antibiotics after a certain point in a chick’s short life, for others, it’s avoiding certain types of antibiotics, and for still others, it is indeed no antibiotics at all. Companies who take this step do take the risk of being called out by the various producers’ groups that still defend the antibiotic-use model. Trade groups assail individual companies, such as restaurant chains, that choose to go antibiotic free. There is still a lot of pressure and lobbying to stick to this damaging way of doing things.
While the author seems to think a combination of free-range and more responsible intensive farming is the only future for meat production in America, she ignores certain important developments and crucial issues. First off, more responsible farming costs more. Americans, millions of whom are already struggling, will have to absorb these costs. Not everyone can afford to visit boutique farms and buy heritage-breed hens, as is depicted in the pages of this book.
The experiments in “clean meat,” grown in the lab, is one of the most hopeful developments of our time. However, while lab-grown meat is still a thing of the future, plant-protein meats presently are sold in nearly every grocery and big-box store. The quality of these products has grown by leaps and bounds, to the point where they can (and do) fool omnivores. While products such as Beyond Meat may not replace chicken in every situation, it blends seamlessly into meals such as stir fry, curries, and fajitas that call for chicken breast strips. And although they may cost more than heavily-subsidized lower grade meats, vegan meats are still cheaper and easier to find than free range animal products. If more Americans switched to products like Beyond Meat chicken strips, even just some of the time, that would translate into fewer animals being crammed into the factory farms that do so much harm to us all.
June 30, 2017
If you're curious about what goes into the food we eat, I would recommend you take a look at this book. In very understandable terms, the author describes antibiotic resistance and its harm to animals and humans.
October 8, 2017
What a fascinating book. It starts with the history of chicken farming and moves on to how industrial farming of chicken (and other livestock also, but especially chicken) has been a much bigger contributor to antibiotic resistance than human medical use.
Quick takeaways:
1. I think this is best read in conjunction with Tim Harford's Adapt. One of the most important things I learnt from this book is how consolidated and vertically integrated poultry farming has become in the USA (but worldwide in general), and how that giant scale has prevented individual farmers from experimenting and learning from each other.
2. It's slightly terrifying when you think that this book talks about the USA and Europe, but not about India and China - who will open that can of worms?
3. But at the same time, the last few chapters which describe how the megacorporations which started the use of antibiotics in chicken farms are now moving away from it in response to market pressure, are surprisingly hope filled and causing. And if the tide can reverse so quickly on AMR, maybe it will do so on climate change as well. I hope.
4. Despite all the bad news, this was not really able to push me towards vegetarianism.
5. This is a very interesting counterpoint to Unnaturally Delicious, which I had read at the beginning of the year.
6. It was very fascinating to learn that chicken as a widespread meat is only about a century old.
Quick takeaways:
1. I think this is best read in conjunction with Tim Harford's Adapt. One of the most important things I learnt from this book is how consolidated and vertically integrated poultry farming has become in the USA (but worldwide in general), and how that giant scale has prevented individual farmers from experimenting and learning from each other.
2. It's slightly terrifying when you think that this book talks about the USA and Europe, but not about India and China - who will open that can of worms?
3. But at the same time, the last few chapters which describe how the megacorporations which started the use of antibiotics in chicken farms are now moving away from it in response to market pressure, are surprisingly hope filled and causing. And if the tide can reverse so quickly on AMR, maybe it will do so on climate change as well. I hope.
4. Despite all the bad news, this was not really able to push me towards vegetarianism.
5. This is a very interesting counterpoint to Unnaturally Delicious, which I had read at the beginning of the year.
6. It was very fascinating to learn that chicken as a widespread meat is only about a century old.
April 16, 2018
An important book that many people should read and despite the title it's about more than just industrially-raised chickens: it could almost stand as a companion to Miracle Cure, William Rosen's comprehensive recent history of the invention of antibiotics. McKenna's book is about the entire system of industrially-raised food and its effects on our health and environment, including and in particular, antibiotic resistance. I couldn't define a plasmid before I read this - (Wikipedia: a genetic structure in a cell that can replicate independently of the chromosomes, typically a small circular DNA strand in the cytoplasm of a bacterium or protozoan), nor did I know the nearly magical way plasmids can carry antibiotic resistance across farms. So I found this book appalling - not in a graphic way such as when watching an exposé about factory farm horrors, but in what it reveals about the extent of and abuse of antibiotic use, for growth and disease, in agriculture.
I don't eat meat at all, but that makes no difference if I am dire need of an antibiotic that is no longer effective. This subject is of life and death for every human (and the other creatures) on the earth.
I don't eat meat at all, but that makes no difference if I am dire need of an antibiotic that is no longer effective. This subject is of life and death for every human (and the other creatures) on the earth.
May 11, 2018
Fascinating, diving deep into the history of industrial chicken farming, and ranging widely over the state of the art and the cutting edge of antibiotic free intensive poultry raising. It was certainly scary and weird in places, but I was surprised at the hopeful note it ended on.
December 15, 2017
Bacteria are constantly evolving to develop resistance to antibiotics. Antimicrobial resistance is a huge public health problem, because a growing number of people are getting diseases that cannot be cured by standard antibiotics such as penicillin. Maryn McKenna is sounding the alarm that there may come a time when antibiotics don’t work anymore.
This book tells the story of “Big Chicken,” how chicken meat has become a factory farm product since World War II. One of the ways farmers have been able to cut costs and increase output of chicken meat is to put antibiotics in the food of all of their chickens. The widespread use of over-the-counter feed antibiotics to increase production in agriculture is one of the causes of antimicrobial resistance in bacteria that cause deadly diseases in humans.
This problem is beginning to be addressed, no doubt in part because of the work of journalists such as the author of this book. The Animal Drug User Fee Act of 2003 (amended in 2008 and 2013), among other things, requires agribusiness to disclose the antibiotics that are being used. USDA National Organic Standards since 2002 make it possible for consumers to know whether meat is organic (and therefore mostly antibiotic-free).
In 2016, the FDA established a regulation to address antimicrobial resistance by promoting “judicious use” in agriculture of antibiotics that are also used to treat diseases in humans. 81 Fed. Reg. 57796 (August 24, 2016). Consistent with Guidance for Industry (GFI) #209 and GFI #213 (published in 2013), the drug companies changed the antibiotics that are medically important for humans to veterinary prescription (Rx) status or veterinary feed directive (VFD) status, meaning these antibiotics are not supposed to be fed to animals without a prescription from a veterinarian. Rx status means the drug is only supposed to be prescribed to treat a sick animal, and VFD status means a veterinarian is only supposed to write an order to put the drug in the food of a group of animals when there has been a disease outbreak. This is a change from the prior practice where farmers bought antibiotics that are prescribed to humans over-the-counter and fed them to all of their animals just to make them grow faster with less expensive feed. Antibiotics that are not used for humans can still be purchased over-the-counter and put in the food of all of the animals.
Attention to this issue has also caused the big chicken producers, starting with Purdue, and the big chicken sellers such as McDonalds, Walmart and Chick-fil-A, to move in the direction of marketing their chicken as antibiotic-free. There is also a growing market for old-fashioned free-range, organic chicken sold in stores such as Whole Foods to consumers who are willing and able to pay twice as much for a more natural, gamier type of chicken.
I did not think this book presented the information very objectively or in a well-organized way. It seemed like the author was trying to shock people into believing that there was some huge problem with the food supply, a little bit like the famous muckraker Upton Sinclair. The book gives the impression that there is a big threat of contracting antibiotic-resistant Salmonella from eating chicken bought in a typical supermarket. But is this really a big risk if you wash surfaces and hands that come into contact with raw meat and avoid eating raw eggs and undercooked meat? Also, it’s a bit Pollyannaish to believe that the U.S. government is going to require, or even subsidize, chicken farming to be done the way it is done under France’s Label Rouge program.
I was happy to learn that one of the leaders in the United States on the issue of antibiotic resistance is a member of Congress representing New York, Louise Slaughter. It’s good to know there are still some people in Washington on the side of science. This book clearly shows the danger of allowing big business to influence government agencies such as the FDA.
This book tells the story of “Big Chicken,” how chicken meat has become a factory farm product since World War II. One of the ways farmers have been able to cut costs and increase output of chicken meat is to put antibiotics in the food of all of their chickens. The widespread use of over-the-counter feed antibiotics to increase production in agriculture is one of the causes of antimicrobial resistance in bacteria that cause deadly diseases in humans.
This problem is beginning to be addressed, no doubt in part because of the work of journalists such as the author of this book. The Animal Drug User Fee Act of 2003 (amended in 2008 and 2013), among other things, requires agribusiness to disclose the antibiotics that are being used. USDA National Organic Standards since 2002 make it possible for consumers to know whether meat is organic (and therefore mostly antibiotic-free).
In 2016, the FDA established a regulation to address antimicrobial resistance by promoting “judicious use” in agriculture of antibiotics that are also used to treat diseases in humans. 81 Fed. Reg. 57796 (August 24, 2016). Consistent with Guidance for Industry (GFI) #209 and GFI #213 (published in 2013), the drug companies changed the antibiotics that are medically important for humans to veterinary prescription (Rx) status or veterinary feed directive (VFD) status, meaning these antibiotics are not supposed to be fed to animals without a prescription from a veterinarian. Rx status means the drug is only supposed to be prescribed to treat a sick animal, and VFD status means a veterinarian is only supposed to write an order to put the drug in the food of a group of animals when there has been a disease outbreak. This is a change from the prior practice where farmers bought antibiotics that are prescribed to humans over-the-counter and fed them to all of their animals just to make them grow faster with less expensive feed. Antibiotics that are not used for humans can still be purchased over-the-counter and put in the food of all of the animals.
Attention to this issue has also caused the big chicken producers, starting with Purdue, and the big chicken sellers such as McDonalds, Walmart and Chick-fil-A, to move in the direction of marketing their chicken as antibiotic-free. There is also a growing market for old-fashioned free-range, organic chicken sold in stores such as Whole Foods to consumers who are willing and able to pay twice as much for a more natural, gamier type of chicken.
I did not think this book presented the information very objectively or in a well-organized way. It seemed like the author was trying to shock people into believing that there was some huge problem with the food supply, a little bit like the famous muckraker Upton Sinclair. The book gives the impression that there is a big threat of contracting antibiotic-resistant Salmonella from eating chicken bought in a typical supermarket. But is this really a big risk if you wash surfaces and hands that come into contact with raw meat and avoid eating raw eggs and undercooked meat? Also, it’s a bit Pollyannaish to believe that the U.S. government is going to require, or even subsidize, chicken farming to be done the way it is done under France’s Label Rouge program.
I was happy to learn that one of the leaders in the United States on the issue of antibiotic resistance is a member of Congress representing New York, Louise Slaughter. It’s good to know there are still some people in Washington on the side of science. This book clearly shows the danger of allowing big business to influence government agencies such as the FDA.
October 26, 2017
I have to admit that sometimes I get conscious consumer fatigue and just buy cheap food at the discount grocery. We're all going to die eventually (though it often seems more imminent these days) so what's the difference between a $1.69 chicken breast family pack and the air chilled locally raised butchered on site chicken at $5.99 from the butcher shop? But then I read books like this and have to remind myself, it's not just what I'm eating, it's supply and demand, supporting causes with my money as well as my tweets. Although, to be honest, reading books like this also make me hate capitalism and lobbyists and science-deniers and the fact that money and profit drive everything.
October 3, 2017
A very readable, well researched history of antibiotic use in chickens. Although 400 pages seems a bit much for the nonspecialist, every chapter is relevant. Beginning in the 1940s as a growth enhancer, antibiotic use became widespread and difficult to eliminate because it made possible industrialized, cheap meat. The final chapters and epilogue provide hope but also compare the problem of antibiotic resistance to climate change; both are multifaceted complex issues.
October 22, 2017
This book is an excellent discussion and expose on the story of how antibiotics and medicine in chickens have altered the effectiveness of antibiotics on humans. The material is well researched, and provides a critical look at the various aspects of growing, expanding the analysis outside of simply chickens, but to cows and pigs as well, which allows for the reader to truly see the impact.
Overall, the book leaves some things to be desired, because the cohesion and purpose of the message is lost, and the author even concludes how many corporations changed their practices, to better align with governmental regulations. While the book included many interviews with different chicken farmers, they appear to have very little agency, which is something that is mentioned only in passing, but this aspect is something that should be unpacked in more detail, because I think that analysis can tell a narrative worth considering.
While there are a few things that could be changed, the book was a massive undertaking in what can be described as a closed group of corporations who do not want to share their trade secrets with the government or the public. The author takes on this challenge and finds farmers who are willing to discuss the business model, expose the secrets, and share their opinion of the farming practices. While some would think of this as an expose, it does not ever feel like gotcha journalism, or a driven narrative, but features documented sources and notes, and admissions of what companies would not speak with the author, (also included in the notes).
I would recommend this book for anyone interested in agriculture, organic farming, or medical studies, because this book features all three. While a basic understanding of farm practices would prove beneficial, the author does a great job detailing and explaining to the readers the ins and outs of the processes in the book. The great thing about the book is that it also serves epidemiologists and other outbreak studies and the history of some of those organizations as well, which is the great thing about the book, the mass appeal to various audiences.
Overall, the book leaves some things to be desired, because the cohesion and purpose of the message is lost, and the author even concludes how many corporations changed their practices, to better align with governmental regulations. While the book included many interviews with different chicken farmers, they appear to have very little agency, which is something that is mentioned only in passing, but this aspect is something that should be unpacked in more detail, because I think that analysis can tell a narrative worth considering.
While there are a few things that could be changed, the book was a massive undertaking in what can be described as a closed group of corporations who do not want to share their trade secrets with the government or the public. The author takes on this challenge and finds farmers who are willing to discuss the business model, expose the secrets, and share their opinion of the farming practices. While some would think of this as an expose, it does not ever feel like gotcha journalism, or a driven narrative, but features documented sources and notes, and admissions of what companies would not speak with the author, (also included in the notes).
I would recommend this book for anyone interested in agriculture, organic farming, or medical studies, because this book features all three. While a basic understanding of farm practices would prove beneficial, the author does a great job detailing and explaining to the readers the ins and outs of the processes in the book. The great thing about the book is that it also serves epidemiologists and other outbreak studies and the history of some of those organizations as well, which is the great thing about the book, the mass appeal to various audiences.
September 18, 2017
This book is all about how industrial farming's use of antibiotics is causing resistant strains to emerge for humans. McKenna has to cover a large swathe of material, and this book is engagingly written with a mix of personal stories and investigation. Two points of detraction: the unblinking focus on the USA (barring a couple of excursions to the UK and the Netherlands) gets a bit boring. Why do we have to always read about the practices of the American government & their industry? Secondly, trying to end on a happy note: this might also be an American thing, but I'm not sure whether it was really appropriate given the subject matter or even an appropriate conclusion to have drawn from the material. An other warning, too: read this book and you may not want to eat chicken ever again...
February 22, 2018
I’m a vegetarian and a veterinary student. I also spent some time in Delmarva learning it’s poultry history and the nuances that go into poultry farming. I loved the book for its historical accuracy but the bias framing made it difficult for me to rate this better. Although accurate the omission of information from one side or the other prevents readers from critically analyzing the complexity of the issue.
One very clear example of this is on page 268.
The author argues “Vaccines are a more efficient protection against infection than antibiotics. If you administer them once, the immune system is forever primed to fight - but antibiotics must be given each time infections start, or continuously to prevent them beginning.”
First of all I want to address the fact that vaccines don’t always offer life long protection or immunity. Vaccination efficacy varies. Vaccine reactions do occur in poultry and can cause high mortalities due to the development of the disease in which it was suppose to protect against. Those that survive will become protected. Some may overcome the primary disease but be die from secondary bacterial infections.
While the author was making an argument for an alternative she never mentioned the implications of the alternative and how it compares. For reasons like this I say that I loved the book but you must think of it critically, be aware of one sided information and framing of the subject.
One very clear example of this is on page 268.
The author argues “Vaccines are a more efficient protection against infection than antibiotics. If you administer them once, the immune system is forever primed to fight - but antibiotics must be given each time infections start, or continuously to prevent them beginning.”
First of all I want to address the fact that vaccines don’t always offer life long protection or immunity. Vaccination efficacy varies. Vaccine reactions do occur in poultry and can cause high mortalities due to the development of the disease in which it was suppose to protect against. Those that survive will become protected. Some may overcome the primary disease but be die from secondary bacterial infections.
While the author was making an argument for an alternative she never mentioned the implications of the alternative and how it compares. For reasons like this I say that I loved the book but you must think of it critically, be aware of one sided information and framing of the subject.
October 15, 2017
Phenomenal read. Discussed how large quantity of chicken meat became essential to American eating lifestyle, how the meat became dangerous due to the infiltration of antibiotics into our livestock, and how chicken overall has changed and the confinement is affecting our diets. Highly recommend
April 17, 2019
I kind of wish I hadn't read this. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
January 2, 2020
Wow, this book is terrifying. It took me some time to get through it because of the nature of the subject matter. I highly suggest all people who consume a Western diet read this.
May 4, 2025
In Plucked: Chicken, Antibiotics, and How Big Business Changed the Way We Eat, author Maryn McKenna tells a story that’s difficult to read, especially for those of us who consume a lot of the product and never worried about its safety. For years, chicken companies gave antibiotics to birds every day, even when they weren’t sick. They said it helped chickens grow faster and stay healthy. However, using drugs this way helped bacteria get stronger. Some of those bacteria could infect people and resist medicine.
In the 1970s, scientists warned about this. A few countries, like Sweden and Denmark, took action. The U.S. did not. Industry groups said the science wasn’t clear. They blamed dirty farms, not the overuse of drugs.
Then things got worse. New kinds of germs started showing up in people. Some came from chicken farms. They didn’t always make people sick, but when they did, medicine often didn’t work.
Still, U.S. meat producers pushed back. They didn’t want rules that might slow them down or cost more. But public pressure grew. More people wanted clean food. Big food chains started asking for chicken raised without certain drugs.
By the 2010s, companies began to change. Perdue led the way. It stopped using antibiotics for growth and cleaned up its farms. They used fewer drugs and still made money. Other companies followed.
McKenna shows how pressure from regular people can push big business to change. It took time, but it worked. You don’t need to wait for perfect science to make wise choices. Just asking “What’s in my food?” can make a real difference.
Significant Takeaways
• Antibiotics were used to grow chickens faster, not just to treat illness.
This became standard in U.S. chicken farms after World War II.
• Giving antibiotics daily led to stronger, drug-resistant bacteria.
These "superbugs" made some infections harder to treat in people.
• Scientists raised red flags decades ago.
Experts warned of risks in the 1970s, but their concerns were ignored.
• Other countries acted early.
Sweden, Denmark, and the UK banned antibiotic growth promoters before the U.S. did.
• U.S. chicken companies pushed back.
They claimed the science wasn’t clear and fought off regulation.
• Resistance started showing up in people.
The same bacteria found in chickens began making people sick.
• Public awareness and outrage grew.
Consumers demanded change once they learned what was happening.
• Perdue made a bold move.
They dropped growth antibiotics and still kept profits strong.
• Cleaner farming works.
Perdue’s changes—like more space and better hygiene—cut down on disease without drugs.
• Change is possible with pressure and proof.
When people speak up and companies lead, even big industries can improve.
Memorable Highlights
I discovered that the reason American chicken tastes so different from those I ate everywhere else was that in the United States, we breed for everything but flavor: for abundance, for consistency, for speed. Many things made that transformation possible. But as I came to understand, the single biggest influence was that, consistently over decades, we have been feeding chickens, and almost every other meat animal, routine doses of antibiotics on almost every day of their lives. Antibiotics do not create blandness, but they created the conditions that allowed chicken to be bland, allowing us to turn a skittish, active backyard bird into a fast-growing, slow-moving, docile block of protein, as muscle-bound and top-heavy as a bodybuilder in a kids’ cartoon.
Eighty percent of the antibiotics sold in the United States and more than half of those sold around the world are used in animals, not in humans.
Today, a meat chicken’s slaughter weight is twice what it was 70 years ago and is achieved in half the time.
Almost all the chickens eaten in the United States, and increasingly in the rest of the world, have been raised for decades in this manner: always indoors, always under artificial light, always eating only what the farmer supplies. It is what makes chickens a predictable crop and chicken meat a product that is consistent in texture, taste, and nutritional content across billions of birds grown in different locations and climates in every month of the year. It is the foundation of the chicken economy, and it is endorsed every day by anyone who ever bought a fast-food chicken sandwich, ordered wings in a bar, or picked up an extra tray of drumsticks because a supermarket put them on sale.
In the 1970s, scientists warned about this. A few countries, like Sweden and Denmark, took action. The U.S. did not. Industry groups said the science wasn’t clear. They blamed dirty farms, not the overuse of drugs.
Then things got worse. New kinds of germs started showing up in people. Some came from chicken farms. They didn’t always make people sick, but when they did, medicine often didn’t work.
Still, U.S. meat producers pushed back. They didn’t want rules that might slow them down or cost more. But public pressure grew. More people wanted clean food. Big food chains started asking for chicken raised without certain drugs.
By the 2010s, companies began to change. Perdue led the way. It stopped using antibiotics for growth and cleaned up its farms. They used fewer drugs and still made money. Other companies followed.
McKenna shows how pressure from regular people can push big business to change. It took time, but it worked. You don’t need to wait for perfect science to make wise choices. Just asking “What’s in my food?” can make a real difference.
Significant Takeaways
• Antibiotics were used to grow chickens faster, not just to treat illness.
This became standard in U.S. chicken farms after World War II.
• Giving antibiotics daily led to stronger, drug-resistant bacteria.
These "superbugs" made some infections harder to treat in people.
• Scientists raised red flags decades ago.
Experts warned of risks in the 1970s, but their concerns were ignored.
• Other countries acted early.
Sweden, Denmark, and the UK banned antibiotic growth promoters before the U.S. did.
• U.S. chicken companies pushed back.
They claimed the science wasn’t clear and fought off regulation.
• Resistance started showing up in people.
The same bacteria found in chickens began making people sick.
• Public awareness and outrage grew.
Consumers demanded change once they learned what was happening.
• Perdue made a bold move.
They dropped growth antibiotics and still kept profits strong.
• Cleaner farming works.
Perdue’s changes—like more space and better hygiene—cut down on disease without drugs.
• Change is possible with pressure and proof.
When people speak up and companies lead, even big industries can improve.
Memorable Highlights
I discovered that the reason American chicken tastes so different from those I ate everywhere else was that in the United States, we breed for everything but flavor: for abundance, for consistency, for speed. Many things made that transformation possible. But as I came to understand, the single biggest influence was that, consistently over decades, we have been feeding chickens, and almost every other meat animal, routine doses of antibiotics on almost every day of their lives. Antibiotics do not create blandness, but they created the conditions that allowed chicken to be bland, allowing us to turn a skittish, active backyard bird into a fast-growing, slow-moving, docile block of protein, as muscle-bound and top-heavy as a bodybuilder in a kids’ cartoon.
Eighty percent of the antibiotics sold in the United States and more than half of those sold around the world are used in animals, not in humans.
Today, a meat chicken’s slaughter weight is twice what it was 70 years ago and is achieved in half the time.
Almost all the chickens eaten in the United States, and increasingly in the rest of the world, have been raised for decades in this manner: always indoors, always under artificial light, always eating only what the farmer supplies. It is what makes chickens a predictable crop and chicken meat a product that is consistent in texture, taste, and nutritional content across billions of birds grown in different locations and climates in every month of the year. It is the foundation of the chicken economy, and it is endorsed every day by anyone who ever bought a fast-food chicken sandwich, ordered wings in a bar, or picked up an extra tray of drumsticks because a supermarket put them on sale.
July 22, 2022
I would describe this book as horrifying - another example of how safety regulations are written in blood, and why it's unreasonable to expect industries to self-regulate in the face of enormous financial pressure. It was reassuring at the end to learn that there have been some improvements in the use of antibiotics, but there's still a very long way to go to ensure that we still have antibiotics available to treat people as bacteria that cause illnesses continue to develop resistance to more and more types of antibiotics.
Big Chicken was informative and covered a lot of history that's necessary to understand the current situation. The author did a great job of explaining the many factors that affect(ed) the use of antibiotics in raising chickens and the development of the chicken industry as a whole in an interesting way, which is not a sentence I ever thought I'd write. There's a mix of interviews, archival research, and other sources. It does get a little slow in places, but overall it's a good read and I feel much more educated (and again, horrified) as a consumer.
Big Chicken was informative and covered a lot of history that's necessary to understand the current situation. The author did a great job of explaining the many factors that affect(ed) the use of antibiotics in raising chickens and the development of the chicken industry as a whole in an interesting way, which is not a sentence I ever thought I'd write. There's a mix of interviews, archival research, and other sources. It does get a little slow in places, but overall it's a good read and I feel much more educated (and again, horrified) as a consumer.
January 3, 2018
Absolutely terrifying. Humanity is in a race to end it all...will it be resistant bacteria? Nuclear war or climate change? 😖☠️ Like all other things, antibiotics and farming is all money and big corporations who don’t care about people, they only care about making money as cheaply as possible and their bottom lines. We’re all doomed.
December 3, 2018
Chickens + infectious disease = one of my favorite books this year. Definitely worth a read, even if neither of those topics are your thing. It's fascinating, informative, and frightening.
November 29, 2017
Very good. Though long, don't let that scare you off. Not dry or boring. It is info you will want to know for your own good.
June 6, 2018
Well researched book on the origins of the poultry industry as we know it today and the impact of certain agricultural practices on human health. I look forward to reading anything this author puts out in the future. Journalism at its best.
March 6, 2021
I like antibiotic free chicken and I cannot lie
May 8, 2023
Beyond boring
October 15, 2017
A thorough read on how antibiotics use in chicken has lead to the surge in microbial resistance to drugs. This book is written in a way to put in complex medical terms into non-patronising lay-man terms. I hope it becomes such a hit that like "the immortal life of Henrietta Lacks". It is not complete doom as corporations as farmers and corporations are starting to phase out antibiotic practice and there is a list of course of actions consumers can take. All in all great informative read.
September 27, 2017
Maryn McKenna has written an excellent book about the how the use of antibiotics in raising farm animals is directly assisting in the creation of drug resistance bacteria. She points out that new antibiotics are becoming too expensive to research and bring to market because bacteria become almost immediately resistant to the new drug before the company can recoup the cost of development. The CDC director is quoted that a post-antibiotic era is upon us and for some patients who have a drug resistant illness, it is already here. A scary thought for those who have studied medical history.
The books starts with the discovery of antibiotics and their immediate use on the farm as growth promoters and preventives for possible disease in crowded chicken houses. It did not take long before antibiotic resistance was noted but it took much effort, money and sleuthing to prove the cause and effect of antibiotic use on the farm and antibiotic resistant illness in the population. Painstakingly over time the evidence overwhelmingly points to a correlation.
The conclusion of the book focuses on how good farming practices can allow for the withdraw of antibiotics except in cases of actual illness in an animal. This is partly due to the fact that antibiotics are no longer providing the growth results that they once did. Ms McKenna gives many examples of large corporations and farmers who are dedicating themselves to phasing out the routine use of antibiotics. It gives a ray of hope that we may avoid the day when antibiotics fail.
The books starts with the discovery of antibiotics and their immediate use on the farm as growth promoters and preventives for possible disease in crowded chicken houses. It did not take long before antibiotic resistance was noted but it took much effort, money and sleuthing to prove the cause and effect of antibiotic use on the farm and antibiotic resistant illness in the population. Painstakingly over time the evidence overwhelmingly points to a correlation.
The conclusion of the book focuses on how good farming practices can allow for the withdraw of antibiotics except in cases of actual illness in an animal. This is partly due to the fact that antibiotics are no longer providing the growth results that they once did. Ms McKenna gives many examples of large corporations and farmers who are dedicating themselves to phasing out the routine use of antibiotics. It gives a ray of hope that we may avoid the day when antibiotics fail.
December 27, 2017
The subtitle should really be "We're F*cked." I have been interested in understanding antibiotic resistance for years but this was my first deep dive into agricultural antibiotic use. And this book fundamentally changed how I think about my chicken consumption habits. If you like books that look at our food supply, this should definitely be on your reading list.
This books reads quickly in a nice, narrative way. I saw other reviewers thought it was repetitive. I disagree. There were references to earlier chapters but it was to draw comparisons.
I will also say this is another solid book from National Geographic Publishing. It is a solid publisher but their books receive very little attention. I hope that changes so the readers don't have to do the heavy lifting of finding the titles and recommending them.
This books reads quickly in a nice, narrative way. I saw other reviewers thought it was repetitive. I disagree. There were references to earlier chapters but it was to draw comparisons.
I will also say this is another solid book from National Geographic Publishing. It is a solid publisher but their books receive very little attention. I hope that changes so the readers don't have to do the heavy lifting of finding the titles and recommending them.
January 2, 2018
I don't really know how to rate a book like this. The research seemed thorough and reliable, and the science was imparted clearly. But I didn't like...enjoy reading it...? It was research for me.
That said, highly interesting. The tl;dr version is: agricultural uses of antibiotics are completely unsustainable. They were a true miracle drug, and offered an incredible short-term boost to global meat availability. But we just can't make new ones as quickly as bacteria can adapt. Both human health and animal welfare is compromised by casual use of agricultural antibiotics.
The more I learn about food and agriculture, the less meat I eat. I'm okay with that.
That said, highly interesting. The tl;dr version is: agricultural uses of antibiotics are completely unsustainable. They were a true miracle drug, and offered an incredible short-term boost to global meat availability. But we just can't make new ones as quickly as bacteria can adapt. Both human health and animal welfare is compromised by casual use of agricultural antibiotics.
The more I learn about food and agriculture, the less meat I eat. I'm okay with that.
January 24, 2021
Microbiology related
May 18, 2018
Just finished reading 'Big Chicken: The Incredible Story of How Antibiotics Created Modern Agriculture and Changed the Way the World Eats' (2017) by Maryn McKenna. I decided to borrow a copy to understand how the unscrupulous and excessive use of antibiotics in the poultry industry contribute to the epidemic rise in antibiotics resistance.
'Big Chicken' is a textbook example of riveting investigative journalism, where author McKenna tries to comprehensively identify the various factors and circumstances in the history of the poultry industry that eventually led to unprecedented resistance to antibiotics, causing the scientific community to warn about an imminent medical crisis, as well as the effects of overbreeding towards the environment as a result of excessive antibiotic administration. It paints a near-apocalyptic portrayal of a future to highlight the sheer gravity of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (MRSA), and the dire need to fix this crisis before it's too late.
It is also a classic case of exploring and exposing the dark side of capitalism, of how an industry's drive to meet market demand spur the need to increase supply by multiple folds. At the same time, this circumstantially coincided with the post-WWII timing, where new antibiotics were discovered and the desperate need for food supply for warfare and deterrence against disasters towards food crops further buttressed and warranted the use of antibiotics on poultry. As amazing as it sounds, it highlights the fascinating notion raised by historians of how scientific discoveries are spurred not by innovation, but actually by wars.
This exploration into the poultry industry is a exemplary case of understanding causality. Running in the same vein as Kate Moore's 'Radium Girls', the book's main objective is to play detective and trace back how their respective problems came to be, emphasizing the sheer difficulty and complexity of connecting the dots and pinpointing the true cause of the outbreak of salmonella and E. coli, and identifying exhaustively the subtle patterns in the string of seemingly unrelated cases. The only main difference is, the main characters in Moore's book are the girls themselves whereas the main characters in McKenna's are the two bacteria, salmonella and E. coli.
Instead of identifying and concluding just how dangerous MRSA are and how the poultry industry has to be reformed, McKenna also offers a solution that can help curb the outbreak as illustrated through case studies of selected farms in France and the Netherlands. It involves a complete change in the poultry industry and perhaps even the country's economy, where the interests of each group must be respected and redefined in order to prevent future outbreaks.
The author carefully balances pessimistic prudence of the virulence of MRSA, with optimistic hopefulness towards consumers' rising awareness towards the dangers of MRSA and their changing consumption habits; analyzes how the industry tries to improve the situation by exploring the challenges faced by 'anti-antibiotic' farmers in ensuring a sustainable antibiotic-free environment for their animals.
The threat of the rise of MRSA is real and terrifying, yet there is hope that this danger can be put under control. This is a great medical-scientific book to understand the world of antibiotic-resistant bacteria through the very daily meat we eat everyday, and how the complexity of the modern world can worsen a problem if it continues to go unchecked. I thank author McKenna for the fascinating read; her book makes me look at chicken in a different light and understand and appreciate how goes into raising chickens and how to be a better informed consumer.
'Big Chicken' is a textbook example of riveting investigative journalism, where author McKenna tries to comprehensively identify the various factors and circumstances in the history of the poultry industry that eventually led to unprecedented resistance to antibiotics, causing the scientific community to warn about an imminent medical crisis, as well as the effects of overbreeding towards the environment as a result of excessive antibiotic administration. It paints a near-apocalyptic portrayal of a future to highlight the sheer gravity of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (MRSA), and the dire need to fix this crisis before it's too late.
It is also a classic case of exploring and exposing the dark side of capitalism, of how an industry's drive to meet market demand spur the need to increase supply by multiple folds. At the same time, this circumstantially coincided with the post-WWII timing, where new antibiotics were discovered and the desperate need for food supply for warfare and deterrence against disasters towards food crops further buttressed and warranted the use of antibiotics on poultry. As amazing as it sounds, it highlights the fascinating notion raised by historians of how scientific discoveries are spurred not by innovation, but actually by wars.
This exploration into the poultry industry is a exemplary case of understanding causality. Running in the same vein as Kate Moore's 'Radium Girls', the book's main objective is to play detective and trace back how their respective problems came to be, emphasizing the sheer difficulty and complexity of connecting the dots and pinpointing the true cause of the outbreak of salmonella and E. coli, and identifying exhaustively the subtle patterns in the string of seemingly unrelated cases. The only main difference is, the main characters in Moore's book are the girls themselves whereas the main characters in McKenna's are the two bacteria, salmonella and E. coli.
Instead of identifying and concluding just how dangerous MRSA are and how the poultry industry has to be reformed, McKenna also offers a solution that can help curb the outbreak as illustrated through case studies of selected farms in France and the Netherlands. It involves a complete change in the poultry industry and perhaps even the country's economy, where the interests of each group must be respected and redefined in order to prevent future outbreaks.
The author carefully balances pessimistic prudence of the virulence of MRSA, with optimistic hopefulness towards consumers' rising awareness towards the dangers of MRSA and their changing consumption habits; analyzes how the industry tries to improve the situation by exploring the challenges faced by 'anti-antibiotic' farmers in ensuring a sustainable antibiotic-free environment for their animals.
The threat of the rise of MRSA is real and terrifying, yet there is hope that this danger can be put under control. This is a great medical-scientific book to understand the world of antibiotic-resistant bacteria through the very daily meat we eat everyday, and how the complexity of the modern world can worsen a problem if it continues to go unchecked. I thank author McKenna for the fascinating read; her book makes me look at chicken in a different light and understand and appreciate how goes into raising chickens and how to be a better informed consumer.
July 17, 2018
This is a remarkable account, meticulously researched and well written, of the history of antibiotics in agriculture, using the industrially farmed chicken as the prism through which to focus the mainly U.S. story. The author explains the science of bacteria and antibiotics, farming and agricultural practices, corporate and regulatory institutions, individual actors, and outcomes over time. Chronologically it gets to the non-legally binding FDA guidance issued in 2012 and 2015 and contains some discussion of the WHO health initiatives regarding overuse of antibiotics as well.
The author explains the microbiology of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in terms a lay reader can understand. Dosed bacteria select over time for those which are resistant. These bacteria remain in the meat and migrate into the environment, other animals and humans. New resistant strains develop. And resistance can be carried by plasmids—extra-chromosomal genetic elements that reproduce and carry resistance from one bacteria to another, “stacking up” resistance. In a sobering, even alarming section of the book, McKenna explains that bacteria have become resistant to an array of human treatment antibiotics, including some of the “last resort” antibiotics, like cipro.
Observing the power of the profit-making and centralizing poultry industry and its allies, McKenna charts their resistance to the emerging science of antibiotic-resistant bacteria transmitted through agricultural practices. They have historically argued that “there wasn’t enough evidence” of the human disease impacts of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (“The tobacco company defense”) to delay or thwart even moderate regulatory efforts and have often fought or defied the FDA. While the non-binding agreement reached recently forbids use of human-use antibiotics for growth promotion, it is unclear generally and from this book how industrial chicken production intends to treat disease prevention and disease treatment uses; it isn’t clear how large the loopholes here are and how implementation is going.
The book explores non-antibiotic, natural chicken farming and the progress towards antibiotic limitation in the chicken and farm animal industries in France (especially Label Rouge), the Netherlands and Britain. It also examines in more detail in the case of several chicken farmers and corporations in the U.S. It narrates the history of Perdue’s abstention from human-use (and some additional) antibiotics. White Oak Pastures, a Georgia firm, remade a single-species conventional farm into a large certified organic property: multispecies, pasture-based, zero-waste lab, freeing poultry not only from antibiotic use for also from fast growth genetics and industrialized production. Bell & Evans, a large privately held poultry company, relies on cleaner feed, sanitary technologies and natural equivalents to antibiotics like oregano oil (“a perfected version of conventional indoor chicken: clean, high welfare, antibiotic free”). In this section of the book the detail seemed a bit excessive and may suggest that informed meat consumers as well as informed citizens pressing for policy solutions propel progress.
Readers interested in these themes have probably already seen the excellent chicken house and Polyface Farms scenes in Food Inc. Steve Schriffler’s early excellent book, Chicken, puts chicken workers more squarely in the picture, and Martin Blaser’s Missing Microbes fills in some of the science. The New Yorker expose on Case Farms is also worth reading. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
The author explains the microbiology of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in terms a lay reader can understand. Dosed bacteria select over time for those which are resistant. These bacteria remain in the meat and migrate into the environment, other animals and humans. New resistant strains develop. And resistance can be carried by plasmids—extra-chromosomal genetic elements that reproduce and carry resistance from one bacteria to another, “stacking up” resistance. In a sobering, even alarming section of the book, McKenna explains that bacteria have become resistant to an array of human treatment antibiotics, including some of the “last resort” antibiotics, like cipro.
Observing the power of the profit-making and centralizing poultry industry and its allies, McKenna charts their resistance to the emerging science of antibiotic-resistant bacteria transmitted through agricultural practices. They have historically argued that “there wasn’t enough evidence” of the human disease impacts of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (“The tobacco company defense”) to delay or thwart even moderate regulatory efforts and have often fought or defied the FDA. While the non-binding agreement reached recently forbids use of human-use antibiotics for growth promotion, it is unclear generally and from this book how industrial chicken production intends to treat disease prevention and disease treatment uses; it isn’t clear how large the loopholes here are and how implementation is going.
The book explores non-antibiotic, natural chicken farming and the progress towards antibiotic limitation in the chicken and farm animal industries in France (especially Label Rouge), the Netherlands and Britain. It also examines in more detail in the case of several chicken farmers and corporations in the U.S. It narrates the history of Perdue’s abstention from human-use (and some additional) antibiotics. White Oak Pastures, a Georgia firm, remade a single-species conventional farm into a large certified organic property: multispecies, pasture-based, zero-waste lab, freeing poultry not only from antibiotic use for also from fast growth genetics and industrialized production. Bell & Evans, a large privately held poultry company, relies on cleaner feed, sanitary technologies and natural equivalents to antibiotics like oregano oil (“a perfected version of conventional indoor chicken: clean, high welfare, antibiotic free”). In this section of the book the detail seemed a bit excessive and may suggest that informed meat consumers as well as informed citizens pressing for policy solutions propel progress.
Readers interested in these themes have probably already seen the excellent chicken house and Polyface Farms scenes in Food Inc. Steve Schriffler’s early excellent book, Chicken, puts chicken workers more squarely in the picture, and Martin Blaser’s Missing Microbes fills in some of the science. The New Yorker expose on Case Farms is also worth reading. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
April 30, 2018
This is a meticulously researched and highly readable book on the history of the chicken "industry" and the perils resulting from the factory farming of the animal that forms a large part of the American (and the world's) diet.
Chicken "farming" as it had become in the US particularly evolved in the 1920s when it changed from small farms which provided the eggs, chickens, feed and sometimes the slaughtering of many varieties of chicken. This poultry was tasty, although not homogeneous, and was the pride of Sunday dinners.
In order to increase production, insure cheaper development of the chickens, the trend was developed that streamlined the growth of this favorite food-providing more and cheaper chicken.
A number of developments assured this trend: Only the fastest growing, large-breasted breed of chickens were recommended. Larger chicken houses were more practical. Antibiotics were added to the feed. "Growers" were sold baby chicks by hatcheries, provided food and drugs, and then collected and processed in large plants.
This process (still very common) was economical and provided a predictable size and taste in the birds. The growers were only caretakers, as large corporations took over the streamlined process of chicken production.
The big problem, which was known early in this development, was that multiple bacteria were rapidly becoming resistent to the antibiotics being fed to the chickens. While the industry giants argued against the fact that this was problematic, more and more medical practitioners and scientists were seeing human infections that could not be treated because the organisms responsible were resistant to multiple antibiotics. Calls for stricter requirements for antibiotic use were fought in courts and in congress.
While factory farms are still common and large processing plants still churn out various forms of chicken cheaply, there is a growing trend among farmers, chefs and activists away from the "factory produced" chicken and the routine use of antibiotics. The knowledgeable American public is looking for animal products free of hormones and especially antibiotics. The move is now toward better, healthier chickens-that also taste better.
Unfortunately, the bulk of antibiotics produced in this country are still being fed to animals (not so much to chickens anymore, as it was eventually determined that they actually had little effect on the production of bigger, healthier chickens).
This is a cautionary tale of ' science 'going wrong-to the detriment of those stricken with untreatable infections.
Maryn McKenna had done the world a great favor in the writing of this saga of greed and hubris and its devastating effects on chickens, farmers, and the availability of effective antibiotics.
I highly recommend this book!
Chicken "farming" as it had become in the US particularly evolved in the 1920s when it changed from small farms which provided the eggs, chickens, feed and sometimes the slaughtering of many varieties of chicken. This poultry was tasty, although not homogeneous, and was the pride of Sunday dinners.
In order to increase production, insure cheaper development of the chickens, the trend was developed that streamlined the growth of this favorite food-providing more and cheaper chicken.
A number of developments assured this trend: Only the fastest growing, large-breasted breed of chickens were recommended. Larger chicken houses were more practical. Antibiotics were added to the feed. "Growers" were sold baby chicks by hatcheries, provided food and drugs, and then collected and processed in large plants.
This process (still very common) was economical and provided a predictable size and taste in the birds. The growers were only caretakers, as large corporations took over the streamlined process of chicken production.
The big problem, which was known early in this development, was that multiple bacteria were rapidly becoming resistent to the antibiotics being fed to the chickens. While the industry giants argued against the fact that this was problematic, more and more medical practitioners and scientists were seeing human infections that could not be treated because the organisms responsible were resistant to multiple antibiotics. Calls for stricter requirements for antibiotic use were fought in courts and in congress.
While factory farms are still common and large processing plants still churn out various forms of chicken cheaply, there is a growing trend among farmers, chefs and activists away from the "factory produced" chicken and the routine use of antibiotics. The knowledgeable American public is looking for animal products free of hormones and especially antibiotics. The move is now toward better, healthier chickens-that also taste better.
Unfortunately, the bulk of antibiotics produced in this country are still being fed to animals (not so much to chickens anymore, as it was eventually determined that they actually had little effect on the production of bigger, healthier chickens).
This is a cautionary tale of ' science 'going wrong-to the detriment of those stricken with untreatable infections.
Maryn McKenna had done the world a great favor in the writing of this saga of greed and hubris and its devastating effects on chickens, farmers, and the availability of effective antibiotics.
I highly recommend this book!
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