Antibiotics off the Menu
Antibiotic resistance is a global public health crisis. Overuse of antibiotics in farming contributes massively to this problem; almost two thirds of the world’s antibiotics are administered to farm animals, often to offset stressful and unsanitary living conditions and speed growth rather than to treat illness. Residues of these antibiotics pass through the food chain to consumers.
With almost 100,000 restaurants worldwide, McDonald’s, Subway and KFC have massive buying power, which could make a big difference to the global supply chain. If they all banned antibiotics from their supply chains, the amount of antibiotics used globally would be dramatically reduced.
Our Antibiotics off the Menu campaign is putting pressure on the largest restaurant chains to stop using meat raised with medically important antibiotics.
A coalition of NGOs, scientists and doctors, led by Consumers International, published an open letter to the CEOs of McDonalds, Subway and KFC, calling for global commitments to end the routine use of all antibiotics included on the World Health Organization (WHO)’s list of important antimicrobials, across all of the companies’ supply chains.
