[Denver Post] America’s love affair with backyard chickens is a tad too intimate, and it’s making some of us sick.
Just this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, eight separate salmonella outbreaks linked to contact with pet poultry have taken place in the United States, sickening more than 370 people in 47 states and hospitalizing 71.
No one has died in 2017 ‐ yet. In 2016, a record 895 people who consorted with fowl came down with the nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps and fever that characterize this infection, and three of them did not survive.
So the CDC is once again telling flock owners to hold back on the heavy petting. That’s not a metaphor: An agency study on the rise of these outbreaks found last year that nearly half of the hundreds of salmonella patients surveyed acknowledged "snuggling" baby birds, and 46 percent said they allowed their poultry in the house. |