The rise of chickens raised without medically important antibiotics
How consumer demand spurred industry-wide change
Nobody wants to hear a doctor tell them that they’ll be using “last-resort” treatment for an infection. A recent article tells the story of what can happen when antibiotics no longer work. For Debbi Forsythe, what should have been a routine urinary tract infection developed into life-threatening sepsis and a multi-day hospital stay. Now, she lives with the fear of recurring infection, which could send her to the hospital or worse.
Losing effective antibiotics across the board is a scary prospect. With examples like Debbi, it’s already a reality for patients. Thankfully, there is hope for avoiding a catastrophic ineffectiveness of these life-saving medicines.
Recent success stories in our food system show that change can occur for the better on this front. In particular, the poultry industry has stepped up when it comes to antibiotics.
An understandable question might be: What do chickens have to do with our ability to treat infections in humans?
For decades, antibiotics have been heavily overused on food-producing animals to compensate for the overcrowded and unsanitary conditions of industrial farms. Overusing the drugs to keep the animals healthy, rather than changing how they’re raised to mitigate the risk for disease, contributes to the rise and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. These pathogens can travel off the farm and into communities, thus posing a threat to people.
Consumers have recognized this danger and, as a result, have been demanding action to restrict antibiotic use on food-producing animals. And both chicken buyers and producers have heard their call.
Perdue Farms, the country’s fourth largest chicken producer, initiated industry change in 2015 by announcing a commitment to prohibit antibiotic use in their production practices (now all of its chicken are raised under a “no-antibiotics-ever” protocol). Later that year, McDonald’s followed, instituting a policy that would eliminate medically important antibiotics in its entire chicken supply.
Tyson Foods, a McDonald’s supplier at the time and the nation’s largest chicken producer, was the next domino to fall. The company switched its retail line of company-branded chicken products to birds raised without any antibiotics in 2017. This announcement generated a ripple effect across the fast-food industry with restaurant after restaurant announcing policies to restrict antibiotic use in their chicken supplies. This year, even Sanderson Farms — a producer notoriously unwilling to reduce its antibiotic use — changed to a similar policy because it couldn’t withstand consumer demand and shareholder pressure.
Now the nation’s top four chicken producers (capturing half of all chicken produced in the U.S.) have eliminated or committed to restrict medically important antibiotics in their production practices. And eighteen of the top twenty-five restaurant chains have adopted policies that restrict antibiotic use for the chicken they serve. That’s a lot of chicken! And a lot of antibiotics saved for when they’re needed most.
While it’s important to applaud the good progress made to restrict unnecessary antibiotic use, there’s more work to do. A recent estimate suggests that up to 162,000 people die from antibiotic resistance infections in the U.S. each year, making it the third leading cause of death. To truly combat antibiotic resistance and preserve these medicines for generations to come, we must learn from the chicken industry.
It’s time for the beef producers to act. They are the largest purchaser of medically important antibiotics for food-producing animals and must do their part to preserve the effectiveness of these medicines. Meaningful action by the beef industry can further protect patients like Debbi from experiencing unnecessary drug-resistant infections.
