Tweet

The roughly eight million women developing bladder infections in the United States every year may be getting a form of the illness resistant to antibiotics from the chicken they buy at the grocery store.

A strain of E.coli found in the DNA of chickens that were fed antibiotics while alive are being spread to humans, causing bladder infections that are extremely difficult to treat, according to researchers.

The drug-resistant bacterium called superbugs are found in everyday store-bought chicken across the U.S. and are being transmitted mostly to women in a number of ways from handling raw poultry or eating foods cross-contaminated with E.coli.