Global restaurant chain McDonald's is to begin reducing the use of antibiotics in its chicken products, reports BBC News. It will focus on removing those antibiotics than can have an impact on human health, but keep those necessary for poultry welfare. Chicken served in its US restaurants will be free of such antibiotics within two years, it said. In Europe, McDonald's is also phasing out the use of certain "critically important" antibiotics.
There are concerns that the overuse of antibiotics in chicken may reduce the drugs' effectiveness in humans. Many poultry producers give their birds antibiotics to make them grow faster. But overuse of the drugs could lead to them becoming less effective in treating illness and disease in humans.
Marion Gross, senior vice-president of North America supply chain, said that McDonald's "believes that any animals that become ill deserve appropriate veterinary care and our suppliers will continue to treat poultry with prescribed antibiotics". But after treatment, the bird "will no longer be included in our food supply". However, McDonald's chicken will be given ionophores, an antibiotic which helps keep chickens healthy but is not used for humans.
The company also said that dairy products, such as low fat white milk and fat-free chocolate milk, would be derived from cows that have not been treated with rbST – an artificial growth hormone. "While no significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rbST-treated and non-rbST-treated cows, we understand this is something that is important to our customers," Gross said.
The changes come in response to growing consumer demand for food made with natural ingredients only.
Costco Wholesale Corporation is working toward eliminating the sale of chicken and meat from other animals raised with antibiotics that are vital to fighting human infections, senior executives at the third-largest US retailer is quoted in Reuters Health as saying.
The ongoing push by Costco, which sells 80m rotisserie chickens a year, highlights growing pressure on the supply chain in the wake of the announcement by McDonald's.
"We are working towards, and working with our suppliers and the regulatory agencies… to see how we can get rid of shared-use antibiotics in animals," Craig Wilson, vice president of food safety at the Issaquah, Washington-based retail giant said. "I think all of us want to move to a point where we can get the human-use antibiotics out of the system. It's going to take time."
The US Food and Drug Administration has issued voluntary guidelines to regulate antibiotic use by producers of poultry and other livestock. Antibiotics rated medically important by the FDA for growth promotion are scheduled to be phased out by December 2016. Wilson said Costco has been working with the FDA and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention on the goal of eliminating shared-use antibiotics. The Centre for Veterinary Medicine is involved in the effort as well, he said.
But food safety experts and campaigners have questioned plans and point to a similar, failed, pledge from the fast-food giant. In 2003 McDonald's introduced a "global policy on antibiotic use in food animals", which said: "McDonald's prohibits the use of antibiotics belonging to classes of compounds approved for use in human medicine when used solely for growth promotion purposes. Growth promotion is defined as the use of antibiotics for any purpose other than disease treatment, control or prevention."
The Guardian reports that McDonald's refused to answer questions about its previous antibiotics policy, nor how it would ensure it meets its pledge this time. The company also did not respond to questions about what percentage of its chickens are currently reared with antibiotics. Also, the report notes, in 2001 McDonald's pledged to reduce antibiotic use in its chickens in the UK and Europe. But the company has confirmed that it still uses antibiotics in chickens 14 years later.
Pamela Clough, the organiser of Public Interest Research Group's Stop the Overuse of Antibiotics campaign, said: "It's a great step forward that McDonald's has made this pledge, but its extremely worrying that they made similar promises more than 10 years ago and haven't kept to them. Can consumers trust that they can make this change now? It will require tracking, it will require that we keep tabs on what they’re doing."
Jonathan Kaplan, director of food and agriculture at the UK's National Resources Defence Council, said McDonald's decision could have a "transformative impact" in changing antibiotic misuse but warned that the new policy did little to improve on the 2003 pledge. Kaplan also warned that McDonald’s continuing to allow antibiotics for "disease prevention" allowed for a "giant loophole" with "no real limit on how much or how often these drugs can be administered".
[link url="http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31743764"]Full BBC News report[/link]
[link url="http://news.mcdonalds.com/press-releases/mcdonald-s-usa-announces-new-antibiotics-policy-and-menu-sourcing-initiatives-nyse-mcd-1179405"]McDonalds statement[/link]
[link url="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/06/us-costco-antibiotics-idUSKBN0M201520150306"]Full Reuters Health report[/link]
[link url="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/mar/04/mcdonalds-chicken-food-safety-experts"]Full report in The Guardian[/link]