Most chicken sold in stores is contaminated, Consumer Reports says

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66. From a microbiology tech: Make sure your bleach solution is freshly made and other tips

I have worked in microbiology labs for over 37 years. We used to use bleach solutions to clean our bench tops. We made up fresh solutions weekly and put them in squirt bottles. We use a commercial disinfectant now, but bleach works as long as you don't have stainless steel countertops. It can pit them.

I would trust a bleach solution more than a vinegar solution. Bleach will kill the virus that causes hepatitis.

I treat all chicken as contaminated. I pick up the chicken packages with my hand inside a plastic bag and then bring the bag down over the package. I always put chicken at the bottom of my cart so it doesn't contaminate anything else in my cart. When I work with it at home I wear disposable gloves and then squirt down all my counter tops with a kitchen disinfectant. I wipe counter tops and then throw down my rag into the wash right away. I clean off all faucet handles. I use a probe thermometer to test whether the chicken is done. Make sure it reads >165 degrees F. Do NOT eat raw chicken.

Campylobacter jejuni and Salmonella are the most likely pathogens you can contract from raw chicken. The biggest danger from Salmonella is that the infection can become systemic, i.e. it doesn't just stay in your intestines, it can spread into tissues and the blood stream. This is why Salmonella is the more dangerous of the two, but each of them can cause severe illness, especially in children or the elderly, causing dehydration that may end up with hospitalization. These enteric pathogens are reported by microbiology labs to state health departments and are tracked by CDC. Salmonella are serotyped, which is how the CDC tracks different strains.

These pathogens are easily grown from a stool specimen sent to a microbiology lab. If you suspect that you may have eaten raw poultry and subsequently get sick, urge your physician to order a stool culture so you can document this. We don't need much - any clean container will work. Have your doc fax an order to your local laboratory and drop off the specimen. Put the container in a plastic bag and submit it the same day it is collected. Make sure your name is on the container. Labs will reject specimens with no names, and the people taking care of you at the lab dropoff will appreciate that you have already labelled the specimen.