The bacteria E. coli now causes 75 to 95 percent of all urinary tract infections, and research from Iowa State University has confirmed that such occurrences are linked to factory farms that use antibiotics. The findings support a study previously completed by scientists from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and George Washington University that shows a strain of antibiotic-resistant E. coli called ExPEC, an extra-intestinal pathogen, was genetically traceable to factory-farmed animals receiving certain antibiotics.

The National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System reports that 75 percent of chicken and turkey, 59 percent of ground beef and 40 percent of pork meats tested were contaminated with E. coli, and that the strains were predominantly multi-drug resistant.