McDonald's Takes a Bite Out of Antibiotic Abuse

July 8, 2003

McDonald's recently announced that it is taking a bite out of the overuse of antibiotics on factory farms, the widespread abuse of which has contributed to the development of dangerous, antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Part of a growing trend among global chain restaurants to cut back on antibiotics use—last year, McDonald's, Wendy's and Popeyes agreed to stop buying chicken treated with fluoroquinolone antibiotics—McDonald's issued a plan in June that goes a lot further: It calls for "suppliers worldwide to phase out animal growth promotion antibiotics that are used in human medicine." Even better, it has a mechanism in place to certify adherence to the policy.

McDonald's new "Global Policy on Antibiotic Use in Food Animals" will have widespread ramifications. It requires that the fast-food giant's "direct" meat suppliers phase out the use of medically important antibiotics as growth promoters. According to a company press release announcing the global policy, "the majority of McDonald's worldwide poultry supply falls into this category. Direct suppliers must certify annual compliance with the policy..."

Although not mandatory for the chain's indirect meat suppliers, which includes most of McDonald's beef and pork suppliers, following the guidelines will be "a favorable factor in supply decisions." The guidelines will therefore provide an incentive for a wider number of producers.

Beyond the immediate changes, the guidelines could set a precedent for other larger buyers to follow, given that McDonald's is a large, international company that buys millions of pounds of meat annually.

"This is a major, positive move on the part of McDonald's," notes Tamiko Thomas, an animal scientist and program manager with The HSUS's Farm Animals and Sustainable Agriculture section. "It highlights the growing concerns that widespread antibiotic use by industrial agriculture is contributing to the development of bacteria that are hazardous to human and animal health."

Concerns about agricultural uses of antibiotics—and their consequences to humans who rely on antibiotics to kill a wide variety of illness-causing bacteria—has been around for decades. But the chorus of critics calling for the wise use of antibiotics on farms has been increasing in recent years. "We do know that in foodborne bacteria, the major force driving drug resistance in infections is drug use on the farm," David Bell of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told The Scientist in 1999. "So for that reason, and because resistance is becoming a problem in animal medicine as well, we're interested in prudent use of antibiotics on the farm."

The Keep Antibiotics Working (KAW) coalition, of which The HSUS is a member, applauds the action taken by McDonald's in response to the coalition's "Campaign to End Antibiotic Overuse."

"McDonald's continues to be a forerunner among the chain restaurants in directly and indirectly improving the welfare of farm animal," adds Thomas. "This announcement comes on the heels of their recent decision to sell veggie burgers in hundreds of McDonald's restaurants in California and their completion of 500 audits of animal processing facilities in 2002."

McDonald's was the first to audit the meat processors based on animal welfare criteria. The inspections conducted by McDonald's food safety auditors have greatly improved handling and stunning practices in the nation's beef packing plants, according to Temple Grandin. Grandin is an assistant professor of livestock handling and behavior at Colorado State University in Fort Collins and an industry expert.

However, while development of McDonald's new policy on antibiotics is a significant move, it is only a first step. In its letter thanking McDonald's for its new policy, KAW urged the fast-food giant to strengthen the plan. The company's guidelines fail to deal with, among other things, the routine prophylactic use of antibiotics to compensate for stressful, unsanitary, and overcrowded growing conditions.

These conditions are the crux of the matter, and they illustrate that to protect human health via food safety, agricultural producers must improve their treatment of the animals they are responsible for—and the living conditions they provide for those animals.

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