SALT LAKE CITY (Reuters Health) - Most raw chicken on grocery store shelves is contaminated with at least some fecal bacteria, according to the results of an Alabama study presented here Monday.

And most of these bacteria--many of which can make people sick--showed resistance to antibiotics commonly used to treat human illness, Sulaiman G. Gbadamosi and M. Edith Powell of Tuskegee University in Alabama report. They presented their findings at the American Society for Microbiology's annual meeting.

The researchers wanted to gauge the effectiveness of HACCP, a system intended to reduce bacterial contamination that the US Department of Agriculture mandated in chicken-processing plants beginning in 1998. While the system does seem to be working, Gbadamosi told Reuters Health, retail grocery stores that package chicken are not regulated by HACCP and appear to be a place where contamination often occurs.

Gbadamosi and Powell bought chicken parts including livers, thighs and wings from seven grocery stores in two rural Alabama counties. They put the chicken parts into bacterial culture medium to see what would grow.

Of the 253 samples they tested, 233 contained bacteria of a type capable of making people sick. Three quarters of the bacteria were fecal, "which are linked to unsanitary conditions," the authors note. The researchers also found bacteria indicating food spoilage in 5% of the samples.

And 62 of the 67 samples they checked, or 93%, were resistant to at least one antibiotic, while 87% were resistant to two or more antibiotics. Resistance to a family of antibiotics called cephalosporins, which are often given to people who are allergic to penicillin, was common.

Even when resistant bacteria are not capable of causing human disease, Gbadamosi noted in an interview with Reuters Health, they can pass resistance along to other bugs that can make people sick.

The findings are likely generalizable to the entire United States, the researchers state, because chicken feeding, raising, processing and packaging is so uniform across the country.

Gbadamosi told Reuters Health the contamination most likely occurs after retail grocery stores buy whole chickens in bulk and then repackage them--for example removing hundreds of chicken wings or thighs, combining them in a vat and bagging them by the dozen for sale. At grocery stores, he noted, "HACCP is out the window."

The responsibility for ensuring that chicken is safe still lies with the consumer, Gbadamosi said, because there is no way to require producers to make a sterile product. The best approach, he added, is to cook chicken until it falls off the bone to kill any bacteria.

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