the Sugar Conspiracy

Friday, June 20, 2003

Ronald makes changes

In response to increasingly dire warnings that widespread use of antibiotics on U.S. farms is making the drugs less effective for treating people, the fast-food chain McDonald's today directed some meat suppliers to stop using antibiotic growth promoters altogether and encouraging others to cut back.

The new policy, the broadest in the United States, focuses on the use of antibiotics in animal feed to speed the development of livestock -- a practice widely seen by researchers as the least important and most expendable use of important antibiotics.

Because McDonald's is the nation's largest purchaser of beef and among the largest for chicken and pork, its action will noticeably reduce the amount of antibiotics being used as growth promoters. Beyond that, consumer and public health advocates as well as McDonald's executives said they hope today's announcement will mark a turning point in the way U.S. farmers raise animals.

I'm not so sure how I feel about this. It's a good step, although a really tiny one. It seems like it's the least they can possbily do to get the most publicity out of it and not upset their bottom line too much. It certainly doesn't affect any of the real issues at hand with America's meat processing industry - the way the animals are "stored" in their cages, the crulety of the slaughterhouses, the poor treatment of the workers, etc. The article is also typically human-centric - the only reason feeding antibiotics to animals to fatten them up for the slaughter is wrong is becuase it increases our resistance to antibiotics. There are deeper issues at stake here.

posted by chris at 4:01 PM
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