Fast-Food Restaurants Curbing Antibiotics in Poultry

March 7, 2002

McDonald's chicken sandwiches may not look different to the naked eye, but they're bound to lend a whole new meaning to the term, "value meal." The fast-food giant, along with Wendy's and Popeyes, has announced that it will no longer buy chickens from suppliers who treat the birds with fluoroquinolone antibiotics, an important step in limiting the development of antibiotic-resistant diseases in animals and humans.

The "Keep Antibiotics Working" coalition, of which the Humane Society of the United States is a member, applauds the action taken by these companies in response to the coalition's "Campaign to End Antibiotic Overuse."

In October 2000, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration proposed to ban the use of fluoroquinolones in poultry, but one of the two manufacturers of these drugs has resisted withdrawing its product, Baytril, from the market. Baytril is approved for treatment of respiratory infections in poultry flocks. However, numerous public health organizations, including the American Medical Association, have decried this use since the human equivalent, Cipro, is considered the "drug of last resort" for difficult-to-treat illnesses in people.

"Obviously, we don't want chickens and turkeys to be sick, but the problem lies in the fact that Baytril is administered in the drinking water to the entire flock," says Dr. Suzanne Millman, Director of Scientific Programs for the HSUS's Farm Animals and Sustainable Agriculture section. "It is too difficult or expensive to isolate and treat only the birds that are actually sick. The more that these drugs are used, the more likely it is that disease-causing bacteria develop drug-resistance.

"The real key is to prevent the birds from getting sick in the first place, and that is where humane, sustainable husbandry systems fit in," Millman continues. "We need to support farmers who are raising animals according to their biological needs and limitations, rather than the industrial model where progress is measured by ever-faster growth rates in crowded, stressful environments."

Although Baytril is used to treat disease, other antibiotics are routinely given subtherapeutically, at low levels and over long periods of time, to healthy animals. The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that of the 35 million pounds of antibiotics administered each year in the United States, more than 70 percent go to livestock to stimulate growth and prevent disease in farm animals. Not only does this practice create "super bugs"—bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics—it also enables factory farmers to continue raising animals in a crowded and unsanitary environment.

In 1997, the World Health Organization called for a ban on nontherapeutic application of antibiotics in livestock, and in 1998, the European Union banned the nontherapeutic use of essential human antibiotics for livestock growth-promotion and disease-prevention.

A growing number of organizations, including The HSUS, urge a similar phase-out of routine feeding of medically important antibiotics to farm animals within the United States. Preserving the efficacy of antibiotics will depend on efforts by consumers, retailers, policy makers and farmers.

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