Researchers blame antibiotics in chicken for superbugs transmitted to women

CINCINNATI - Medical researchers tell ABC News that more than 8 million women are at risk for hard-to-treat bladder infections, because superbugs from chicken are being transmitted to humans.

If the researchers are right, there is compelling new evidence of a direct link between the superbugs and the antibiotic-fed chicken we buy at the grocery store.

The Food and Drug Administration says 80 percent of all antibiotics sold in the US are fed to livestock and chickens to protect them from disease in cramped quarters.

Researchers say they do not have a definitive link between the E.coli in chicken and infection in women, but they say there is "persuasive" evidence that chicken carries the same bacteria with the highest levels of resistance to medicine as causes the drug resistant infection in women.