“I am writing to express my serious concern about the excessive use of medically important antibiotics in McDonald’s supply chains.” This is the start of a mass email being sent to McDonald’s CEO, Steve Easterbook, by ShareAction, a charity that is currently organizing consumers and investors to put pressure on the fast food giant to prohibit the use of products from animals treated with antibiotics.
When it comes to antibiotics regulation, it seems that the power to create necessary change will not come from citizens pressuring their governments, but rather from vocal consumers pressuring powerful companies.
Antibiotics are widely used in cattle and poultry farming. They are important for curing disease and providing “humane” care of animal illness in livestock as they reduce the suffering of a sick animals or help control the spread of an infection.
In addition to curing diseases and preventing infections, antibiotics are also key in boosting output. Several antibiotics have side effects that increase the growth speeds of farmed animals and improve feed efficiency in intensive animal rearing practices. Furthermore, according to the World Organization for Animal Health, the use of antibiotics is essential in securing the global supply of animal protein for humans.
However, the practice of antibiotic use has become so routine that scientists and consumers are increasingly becoming concerned about the links between antibiotic resistant infections in humans and the overuse of antibiotics in the meat supply chain.
Antimicrobial resistance, a situation where infectious microorganisms can no longer be treated by the antibiotics that are normally used to treat them because they have become resistant due to prior exposure to the antibiotics, is a public health problem of growing urgency. The use of antibiotics in agriculture may play a significant role in aggravating the problem.
Recent estimates by the Union of Concerned Scientists suggest that many more antibiotics are used each year on healthy animals than on sick humans in the U.S. Often, animals see as much as eight times the amount of antibiotics humans normally receive. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and many scientists around the world, this misuse of antimicrobials in the agricultural sector may be leading to a rise in drug-resistant superbugs and the world may be fast approaching what the World Health Organization has described as a “post-antibiotic era,” an era where routine operations will no longer be possible.
Some countries are more proactive than others in regulating the use of antibiotics in animal farming. Several European countries, for example, have banned the use of some drugs for preventative use. In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration recently updated its regulations to try to begin reducing the use of antibiotic use on factory farms, and numerous senators and members of congress have shown support for acts proposing limits on the use of antibiotics. However, none of the proposed acts were passed. More generally, there are few legal instruments and little political support around the world to impose limits on the use of antibiotics for growth enhancement rather than disease treatment.
Excessive antibiotics use has global consequences and is not bound by territorial borders. As citizens who directly suffer the increased risk of becoming exposed to drug-resistant bugs, we turn to our political representatives for an answer. However, when it comes to concrete changes in the antibiotic use in meat supply chains, local governments and politicians may be paralyzed. This topic confronts many powerful economic and political groups with special interests on public health, agricultural production practices, animal rights, international trade and global food security. With so much lobbying pressure from so many directions, it appears that governments and politicians will be endlessly running into legal and financial obstacles.
However, there is an alternative for those of us concerned with antibiotic overuse and its link to resistant, infection-carrying microorganisms. As consumers of animal products from animals treated with antibiotics who want to feel confident that the food we purchase has been responsibly sourced and doesn’t contribute to antimicrobial resistance, we can turn to the market for an answer.
That is exactly what ShareAction is doing by encouraging people to email McDonald’s CEO and demand he bans the use of products from animals treated with antibiotics.
McDonald’s is a powerful player. It is the world’s largest chain of fast food restaurants, operating in over 100 countries and playing important roles in multiple global supply chains. A company of the size and reach of McDonald’s is uniquely placed to seize any opportunity for change in the restaurant sector. McDonald’s is an important buyer of products that go into their hamburgers, nuggets and fries. Thus, a small change in what it requires from beef and poultry producers is likely to have significant and substantial impacts in agricultural production practices across the globe.
Moreover, McDonald’s has a reputation as a responsive company to changes in consumer tastes and as a frontrunner in sustainable practices. McDonald’s entire U.S. chicken supply is now raised without the use of medically important antibiotics and the company aims to phase out the use of the highest priority critically important antibiotics within the European poultry supply chains by 2018. Also, McDonald’s U.S. dairy products, such as low fat white milk, will come from cows that have not been treated with rbST, an artificial growth hormone,
As ironic as it may sound, the lesson seems to be that, for this particular case, rather than engaging in long and tedious political process to have our voices heard by our political representatives, it may be much more efficient to simply ignore the political process and use your consumer power to turn the world around. If you are concerned with the routine use of antibiotics reducing the effectiveness of drugs on humans, next time you go to McDonald’s, simply ask for one McCombo without antibiotics.
