Hold The Antibiotics

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that at least 23,000 people die every year from antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and warns that the widespread overuse of antibiotics on factory farms is putting our health at risk.

Approximately 70 percent of medically important antibiotics sold in the U.S. are for use on factory farms. We know we can get factory farms to stop misusing our life-saving medicines if their biggest customers commit to buying meat that’s been raised without routine antibiotics.

Over the past few years, we’ve helped McDonald’s, Subway, KFC and others to commit to stop buying chicken raised on antibiotics important to human medicine. The result? In the near future, we estimate that nearly half the chicken in this country will be raised without the routine use of medically important antibiotics. We’re talking billions of chickens a year.

Campaign Victory

After a year-long campaign targeting the largest purchaser of beef in the United States, we secured a commitment from McDonald’s that it will reduce medically important antibiotics use in its beef supply.

See what it took to win.

PHOTO: Staff

Campaign Timeline

JANUARY 2018

After securing commitments from Subway, KFC and McDonald’s to serve chicken raised without using medically important antibiotics, we launched our “Hold the Antibiotics: McDonald’s” campaign, calling on the company to commit to a timeline to phase out the routine use of antibiotics in it’s beef supply chain.

PHOTO: Supreet Muppa

Campaign Timeline

FEBRUARY 2018

We brought together more than 80 stakeholder groups to call on McDonald’s to cut routine antibiotic use in its entire meat supply.

PHOTO: Ed M. Koziarski

Campaign Timeline

MAY 2018

At McDonald’s annual shareholder meeting, U.S. PIRG Education Fund and our partners delivered 160,000 petition signatures from consumers across the country.

PHOTO: Staff

Campaign Timeline

JULY 2018

Through our citizen outreach operation, we had more than 180,000 conversations with the public and connected with medical professionals about why McDonald’s should hold the antibiotics.

PHOTO: Austin Donohue

Campaign Timeline

OCTOBER 2018

At the fourth release of our annual “Chain Reaction” report, we delivered McDonald’s an “F” grade based on the antibiotics use for the beef they source. That day, McDonald’s publicly stated that it would roll out a global antibiotic policy for beef by the end of 2018.

PHOTO: Anna Azarov Photography

Campaign Timeline

DECEMBER 2018

VICTORY: McDonald’s commits to monitor and reduce medically important antibiotic use in its global beef supply.

PHOTO: Staff

Campaign Victory

This commitment, coming from a fast food chain that serves 1 billion pounds of beef in the United States each year could spark industry-wide change and have huge impacts on public health.

See what we’re working on now.

PHOTO: Staff

McDonald’s Should Lead

If we want to save our antibiotics, we need to stop the overuse of antibiotics by all large industrial farms. So we’re focused on getting the restaurant chain cited as the country’s biggest purchaser of beef and a major pork buyer, McDonald’s, to "Hold The Antibiotics."

McDonald’s no longer serves chicken raised with medically important antibiotics in the U.S., and when they make a similar commitment to phase routine antibiotic use out of their pork and beef supply chains, it will signal a massive shift that could transform the way we raise meat in our country, and more importantly help preserve the effectiveness of antibiotics, protecting public health, and saving lives.

McDonald’s has indicated that they want to move in this direction. The question is how fast, and how strong of a commitment are they willing to make? This could result in an industry-wide shift away from misusing our life-saving medicines to produce meat.

Several of the more than 30,000 photo petitions and signatures our national network collected calling on McDonald’s to eliminate medically important antibiotics from their chicken supply chains.

The surest way to get McDonald’s to take action is to demonstrate just how much support there is for change and how big of an impact this could have on this growing public health threat.

We know that people and the medical community are behind us. In a poll released by NCPIRG and Consumer Reports, 93 percent of doctors polled said they were concerned about the practice of using antibiotics on healthy animals for growth promotion and disease prevention. And, across the country, 300,000 people have added their names in support for our call to stop the overuse of antibiotics.

To build on this momentum, we’ve created the Health Professional Action Network, a group of physicians and health experts who can present firsthand accounts of why McDonald’s and their shareholders need to take action to help stem antibiotic resistance.

PRIORITY ACTION

More burger chains should follow McDonald's lead

McDonald's recently committed to monitor and reduce the use of medically important antibiotics in its beef supply chain. If more burger chains follow McDonald's lead it can help accelerate industry-wide change to stop overusing life-saving medicines.

TAKE ACTION

Are you a medical professional?
Contact us to get involved in our Health Professional Action Network.

Top photo: USDA

To stop the overuse of antibiotics, and save our life-saving medicines, we’re getting big farms and restaurants to do their part.