Baltimore, November 28:Researchers at The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore claim to have found a novel pathway for human exposure to potentially harmful bacteria from poultry trucks.

The researchers warn that tailgating the poultry carriers can significantly increase a person’s exposure to poultry-borne bacteria. Not only the motorists, even those who live along roads traveled by chicken trucks may be exposed to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, they said.

The report appeared in the very first issue of "The Journal of Infection and Public Health," which will publish research on the epidemiology, prevention and control of infectious disease.

To reach their study, study co-author Ana Rule, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University and colleagues drove two to three car lengths behind the trucks carrying crates of broiler chickens on U.S. 13 down the Delmarva Peninsula in summer and fall of last year, as they traveled from farm to slaughterhouse. With the windows of their car down and the air conditioning off, the researchers drove their cars for a distance of 17 miles.

After these road trips, Rule and her colleagues checked the cars for bacteria and discovered elevated levels of bacteria in and on their car. They collected a wide variety of bacteria from air samples, door handles and soda cans inside the car. And, many of the bacteria were resistant to the antibiotics tetracycline, erythromycin and quinupristin/dalfopristin.

"Our study shows that there is a real exposure potential, especially during the summer months, when people are driving with the windows down; the summer is also a time of very heavy traffic in Delmarva by vacationers driving to the shore resorts," Rule said in a statement.

She said further studies are needed to determine if chicken trucks can make you sick.

However, Dr. Keith Klugman, an Emory University epidemiologist who was not involved in the research, said Chicken trucks may spread drug-resistant bacteria but getting sick that way is unlikely. Most healthy people don't suffer serious illness from these bacteria even when exposed in more conventional ways.

"It was kind of an unnatural experiment, in that people were driving behind these trucks with the windows open and the air conditioning off for 17 miles," he added. "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."

Not happy with Rule’s findings, the National Chicken Council issued a statement criticizing the study, calling it "unfocused, unrealistic, and rather unsafe."

Echoing statements made by NCC, Bill Satterfield, executive director of Georgetown, Del.-based nonprofit Delmarva Poultry Industry Inc., said the study was the latest attempt to “discredit and embarrass the industry.”

“Those bacteria would be the least of your problems if you’re tailgating a chicken truck for 17 miles,” he said.

Rule and her colleagues reported their findings in the inaugural issue of Journal of Infection and Public Health.