McDonald's USA announces new antibiotics policy

McDonald's USA have announced a new antibiotics policy and say they aim to only source chicken raised without antibiotics that are important to human medicine. McDonald's USA say that all their chicken comes from domestic poultry farms and they aim to implement the new policy within the next two years. The global restaurant giant also said ionophores, a type of antibiotic not used for humans will continue to be used.

Coilin Nunan of the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, commented: “This new initiative is significant but only applies to McDonalds USA and not to its international outlets. For the UK, McDonalds only say they will stop using two types of critically important antibiotics in three years time, but they make no commitment for the many other types of antibiotics, which presumably they will continue to use routinely in British chicken. Such voluntary promises are welcome, but they are difficult to monitor and don't go far enough. Previous experience has shown that antibiotic use is only significantly reduced in those countries where regulators introduce restrictions on routine preventative use."

Sustain are part of the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics