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McDonald's Pulling Antibiotics from All Chicken Products in U.S. - SW

By on March 9, 2015
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By Jill Ettinger from our artiness at NaturallySavvy.com

McDonald’s Corp’s U.S. has announced that it will phase out the use of antibiotics from its chicken suppliers in its U.S. locations.

The chain said that within two years, it will “only buy chickens raised without antibiotics that are important to human medicine,” reports Reuters. “McDonald’s policy will begin at the hatchery, where chicks are sometimes injected with antibiotics while still in the shell.”

Read more about Chick-Fil-A phasing out antibiotic use in chickens

“We’re listening to our customers,” Marion Gross, senior vice president of McDonald’s North American supply chain, told Reuters. Gross said the company is working with its domestic chicken suppliers, “including Tyson Foods Inc, to make the transition.”

The use of antibiotics is not illegal in raising livestock animals, and while some medically necessary reasons do occur for the administration of antibiotics, most livestock animals are given the drugs to enhance growth and speed the animals to market. “[As] the rate of human infections from antibiotic-resistant bacteria increases, consumer advocates and public health experts have become more critical of the practice of routinely feeding antibiotics to chickens, cattle and pigs,” Reuters explains.

“Scientists and public health experts say whenever an antibiotic is administered, it kills weaker bacteria and can enable the strongest to survive and multiply. Frequent use of low-dose antibiotics, a practice used by some meat producers, can intensify that effect. The risk, they say, is that so-called superbugs might develop cross-resistance to critical, medically important antibiotics.”

Already, Tyson and Perdue chicken producers have said they will be removing antibiotics from their chicken hatcheries, due mostly as a result of consumer demand for cleaner chicken products. In the face of stagnant sales, it’s not surprising that McDonald’s has made a similar announcement.

Read more about how to heal your body from antibiotic overload

This may be a “tipping point for antibiotic use in the poultry industry,” Jonathan Kaplan, the Natural Resources Defense Council’s food and agriculture program director told Reuters. “McDonald’s has so much purchasing power and brand recognition, I think we’re seeing a new industry standard here.”

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

savvy2Jill Ettinger is Naturally Savvy’s Managing Editor and a contributing writer.

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