To fight against antibiotic resistance, McDonald’s wants to reduce the presence of these drugs in the beef used for its burgers.
Fast-food giant McDonald’s has announced its intention to reduce the presence of antibiotics in the beef used for its burgers. “McDonald’s announces a policy to reduce the overall use of antibiotics important to human health, as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO)which applies to 85% of our global beef supply chain,” a company statement read.
Three steps
This plan will take place in three stages:
1/ Conduct a study on the use of antibiotics among the main beef suppliers.
2/ Establish targets for reducing the use of antibiotics by the end of 2020.
3/ Communicate on the progress made from 2022.
Fight against the development of resistance to antibiotics
“Reducing the overall use of antibiotics in beef is complex and cannot be done overnight. Additionally, there is little data on antibiotic use in the global beef industry. why, together with our suppliers and beef producers, we are taking a step-by-step approach,” the fast-food chain said.
A similar approach was initiated in 2017 for chicken, like the Walmart or Tyson Foods brands. The aim here is to fight against the development of resistance to antibiotics in the world, identified as a major public health problem, which continues to worsen.
10 million deaths per year
While in 2014 a report on antibiotic resistance predicted that by 2050, antimicrobial resistant infections could become the leading cause of death worldwide, causing 10 million deaths per year, a new study published in the review The Lancet Infectious Diseases makes an equally alarming observation. According to researchers, antibiotic-resistant bacteria caused the death of 33,000 people in 2015 within the European Union. “The burden of these infections is comparable to that of the flu, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS combined,” the scientists worry.
Lena Brook, food issues expert for the Natural Resources Defense Council, explains on her blog, relayed by 20 minutes : “a large majority of these drugs are massively distributed in food or water, often to animals that are not sick, to help them survive penned up, in the unsanitary conditions of certain industrial farms”. She welcomes the initiative of McDonald’s, judging that it “sends a clear message that we will soon no longer be able to tolerate current practices”.
Too fat and too sweet
McDonald’s is one of the largest fast food chains in the world, serving some 69 million customers daily. France is the company’s sixth largest market with 1,258 restaurants, behind the United States, Japan, China, Germany and Canada. Finally, remember that despite the company’s good intentions in terms of antibiotics, the food products it offers are almost all too fatty and too sweet, and therefore bad for your health if they are consumed too regularly.
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