A U.S. research team claims to have discovered a new pathway for human exposure to presumptive harmful bacteria from poultry trucks.
 
The findings of a study carried out by researchers at The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore say that motorists and people who live by the side of roads traveled by chicken trucks may be exposed to antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
 
Ana M. Rule, Sean L. Evans and Ellen K. Silbergeld traveled two to three car lengths behind several trucks that were transporting crates of broiler chickens. They drove from farm to slaughterhouse with the car’s windows down and the air conditioning off. Then, researchers collected air and gathered samples inside the cars. These samples had elevated levels of bacteria, such as antibiotic-resistant strains, which could be breathed in.
 
The same bacteria were also discovered on a soda can that was found inside the car and on the outside door handle, where people could come into contact with them, said the report, which was published in the first issue of the Journal of Infection and Public Health.

According to Dr. Keith Klugman, an Emory University epidemiologist who was unconnected to the research, the possibility of falling ill due to chicken trucks is minimal. The majority of people don’t experience severe illness from these bacteria when exposed to them in conventional ways. What researchers have done was a sort of “an unnatural experiment,” Klugman said. "If you were driving behind a truck that was spewing stuff out the back of it, the first thing you would probably do is close your windows."