McDonald's Asks Meat Industry to Cut Use of Antibiotics ~Tyr

McDonald's said it expected its suppliers to phase out the use of some antibiotics that promote growth in healthy animals and to significantly reduce the use of other antibiotics that typically protect animals against disease. The company's decision was reported in the washington Post Today.

McDonald's said it was making the change because of growing evidence that the use of antibiotics in farm animals was creating antibiotic resistance in animals and in the bacteria that cause diseases in humans.

"It's a public health concern," said Bob Langert, the senior director of social responsibility at McDonald's, which is based in Oak Brook, Ill. "So we're putting the word out that we want to buy less antibiotics in our meat."

Advertisement Industry officials said the McDonald's decision would likely help alter the way animals are raised around the world because McDonald's is the world's largest restaurant chain and one of the world's biggest purchasers of meat. Last year, the company bought about 2.5 billion pounds of beef, poultry and pork. The European Union has already begun to phase out the use of growth-promoting antibiotics.

Other major restaurants and food companies are expected to follow the lead of McDonald's and force suppliers to cut back antibiotic use.

Antibiotics are widely used in the production of poultry, beef and pork, usually to fight off and control disease, but also to foster quicker or more efficient growth in some animals, particularly chickens.

Meat producers often add growth hormones and growth-promoting antibiotics to animal feed to create faster-growing animals. The McDonald's decision only affects the growth-promoting antibiotics.

The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates the use of antibiotics in farm animals, deems them safe and effective. But today, an F.D.A. official praised McDonald's for responding to concerns that the overuse of antibiotics around the world could allow germs that infect humans to eventually become resistant to treatment.

"McDonald's ought to be commended," said Dr. Linda Tollefson, deputy director of the Center for Veterinary Medicine at the F.D.A. "The thinking is that less use of antibiotics is better in humans and animals."

Some of the biggest meat suppliers for McDonald's, like Tyson Foods and Cargill, also applauded the move today and said they would work to comply with the new standards. But other industry officials said there was not yet enough evidence to justify a rejection of antibiotics.

"This is not a decision motivated by science but by market research," said Dan Murphy, a spokesman for the American Meat Institute, which represents some of the nation's big meat suppliers. "But we support them because perception is often reality."

The Animal Health Institute, which represents the makers of drugs for animals, also said the decision was not based on sound science.

"While we respect McDonald's right to do this, where we decide to put our confidence is in a science-based decision-making process," said Ron Phillips, a spokesman for the institute, which is based in Washington. "McDonald's has come to a marketing decision."

The announcement by McDonald's is just the latest in a series of moves by big food and agriculture companies to respond to consumer and public health concerns about the way the nation's food is produced.

Environmental groups and animal rights activists have complained for years about the growth of factory farms, where animals are housed in crowded conditions, and big packing plants.

They have also complained about the development of genetically altered crops, which are increasingly common on America's farmlands, and the increasing farm dependence on antibiotics that help animals survive in crowded conditions or help them reach slaughter-weight faster.

Now, some of the biggest food and agriculture companies are responding by pressuring their suppliers to use a softer touch.

A year ago, several big poultry producing companies began quietly reducing the antibiotics they fed to healthy chickens to promote growth. Two years ago, McDonald's also asked its suppliers to phase out the use of a class of antibiotics that was closely related to Cipro (the drug best known as a treatment for anthrax in humans) because it could increase resistance to the human drug.

And in recent years, three of the nation's biggest fast-food outlets, McDonald's, Burger King and KFC, have hired animal welfare specialists and instituted new standards on the humane treatment of animals.

In making its announcement today, McDonald's said it had worked with animal welfare specialists and Environmental Defense, an advocacy group often at odds with the food and agriculture industries, to rethink the use of antibiotics.

Advertisement In a statement, Rebecca Goldburg, an expert on antibiotic resistance at Environmental Defense, praised the decision by McDonald's and criticized the use of growth-promoting antibiotics.

"These antibiotics are often used to compensate for the crowded stressful conditions that are found on many large animal-production facilities," she said.

Not all antibiotics are to be phased out, only growth-promoting antibiotics that are also used in human medicine. For other antibiotics, McDonald's is simply encouraging and giving preference to suppliers that reduce their use of the drugs.

Antibiotic use in the United States is in decline, according to the Animal Health Institute, which said 21.8 million pounds of antibiotics were sold in 2001, down from 23.7 million pounds in 2000. But there are very few reliable statistics on who uses them and what kinds are being used.

The government does not monitor antibiotic use and the companies are often reluctant to publish details or label their products.

Mr. Murphy of the American Meat Institute said that growth-promoting antibiotics are most widely used in poultry, but they are also used heavily in the production of hogs. They are not widely used for cattle, he said.

Tyson, the world's largest beef and poultry producer, says it does not use growth-promoting antibiotics in its poultry products. Its beef products come from ranchers, so much less is known about antibiotic use in beef, the company said.

Cargill, another meat giant, declined today to say whether or not it uses growth-promoting antibiotics.

But Dr. Tollefson, at the F.D.A., said that in the United States "most animals are produced using growth-promoters."

Robert A. Doughty, a spokesman for Burger King, the nation's second-largest fast-food chain, said it had already been "looking at this issue, and we'd had some discussions with our suppliers."

Bob Bertini, a spokesman for Wendys, said it was "considering additional steps to reduce the use of antibiotics by our livestock and poultry supplier network."