Groups Applaud NY Times' Report about Major Food Companies' Steps to Reduce Antibiotic Resistance

The Humane Society of the United States
Sunday, 10 February 2002

Keep Antibiotics Working: The Campaign to End Antibiotic Overuse— today sent letters to McDonald's, Wendy's and Popeyes applauding the companies for refusing to buy chicken treated with fluoroquinolone antibiotics, as reported in The New York Times today.

"Thank you for taking this important step to provide your customers with food raised in a way that helps keep these critical antibiotics working for people who need them," the letter said.

Keep Antibiotics Working also sent a letter today to the 30 U.S. restaurants that sell the largest quantities of chicken, asking them to follow McDonald's, Wendy's and Popeyes lead.

In addition, Keep Antibiotics Working applauded the news that chicken producers Tyson, Perdue and Foster Farms have told The Times they have reduced the amounts of antibiotics routinely fed to healthy chickens. However, the Keep Antibiotics Working coalition cautioned that terminology about agricultural antibiotic use can be confusing.

"We look forward to obtaining more information on the new practices of Tyson, Perdue and Foster Farms," said Karen Florini, senior attorney with Environmental Defense. "If these changes are leading to a significant decrease in the use of medically important antibiotics, that's welcome news indeed and other poultry and livestock producers should promptly adopt similar changes."

In October 2000, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed to ban the use of fluoroquinolones in poultry after FDA scientists determined that such use contributes to increasing numbers of people becoming infected with certain antibiotic-resistant bacteria that cause food poisoning. Fluoroquinolones - a category of antibiotics that includes Cipro - are the drugs of choice to treat severe cases of food poisoning. Although one manufacturer immediately agreed to comply with the FDA's proposed ban, the only other manufacturer, Bayer Corporation, has contested the proposal. As a result, Bayer's product (Baytril) remains on the market - even though the American Medical Association and numerous other health groups have urged Bayer to voluntarily end sales of Baytril.

"Bayer's refusal to withdraw Baytril from the poultry market compromises the effectiveness of fluoroquinolones, including Cipro, for treating severe food poisoning in people. Bayer's slogan is "Expertise with Responsibility." But Bayer has made the irresponsible choice to put profits over public health," said Tamar Barlam, M.D., an infectious disease physician with the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Inappropriate use of fluoroquinolones in poultry is one part of a larger problem - the overuse of antibiotics in both human medicine and animal agriculture. Unlike fluoroquinolone antibiotics, which are approved for use in poultry only to treat illness, a great majority of antibiotics used in agriculture are given to healthy farm animals to promote growth and prevent disease on overcrowded factory farms. This routine feeding of antibiotics to healthy farm animals comprises an estimated 70% of the total amount of antibiotics used in the U.S. each year. Overuse of antibiotics spurs bacteria to develop antibiotic resistance, making it harder - or even impossible - to treat bacterial illnesses.

Keep Antibiotics Working is a coalition of health, consumer, agricultural, environmental and other advocacy groups, with a total of more than nine million members, dedicated to curtailing the inappropriate use of antibiotics in farm animals. The Humane Society of the United States is a member.

For more information, or to contact The Humane Society of the United States, see their website at: www.hsus.org