Happy Valentine’s Day, McDonald’s
More than 80 groups urge fast food chain to cut routine antibiotic use
Today, U.S. PIRG Education Fund and our partners delivered a special valentine to McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook — a letter signed by more than 80 stakeholder groups from around the world, urging the company to cut routine antibiotic use in its entire meat supply chain. At the same time, our Valentine’s Day message to McDonald’s reached nearly 400,000 people on social media, telling the company loud and clear that consumers are hungry for meat raised without routine antibiotic use.
Approximately 70 percent of medically-important antibiotics sold in the U.S. are for use on food animals. In many cases, meat producers dose otherwise healthy animals routinely to compensate for unsanitary, overcrowded conditions that can spread disease. This routine use of the drugs turns farms into breeding grounds for antibiotic resistant bacteria, aka “superbugs.”
Superbugs already kill at least 23,000 people every year in the U.S., and without swift action, that toll will likely skyrocket.
McDonald’s is the largest purchaser of beef in the U.S. and a significant purchaser of pork. As such, the company has a sizeable role to play in ensuring that meat producers no longer misuse these precious medicines.
Valentine’s Day is a time to share our love for the people who make our lives better. Our letter to Mr. Easterbrook acknowledges McDonald’s past actions as a responsible antibiotics steward; the company implemented its U.S. commitment to stop serving chicken raised with medically-important antibiotics ahead of schedule in 2016.
Stakeholders who signed the letter sent a clear message to McDonald’s about how it should evolve its beef and pork supply chains: rather than misusing antibiotics routinely to prevent disease or promote growth, which can spur the spread of drug-resistant bacteria, McDonald’s should require its producers to reserve antibiotics only to treat sick animals or control an identified disease outbreak.
With millions of people getting sick from antibiotic-resistant infections each year, thousands fatally, it’s critical that McDonald’s act now. We’ll continue to build support for McDonald’s to be a true antibiotic steward in its meat sourcing through our Hold the Antibiotics, McDonald’s campaign.
I hope that next year we can send Mr. Easterbook another Valentine, simply to thank him for taking on that role of antibiotic steward wholeheartedly.
