World Antibiotics Awareness Week: Global food brands must take Antibiotics off the Menu

Anna Glayzer, Advocacy Manager at Consumers International, outlines the need for an urgent, global response to the world's escalating antibiotic resistance crisis. 

This week is World Antibiotics Awareness Week. Given the seriousness of the public health crisis we are facing, there are few topics more in need of heightened worldwide awareness than antibiotic resistance. Many people do not realise that we are a few decades away from the end of modern medicine as we know it. By 2050 drug resistant infections will cause 10 million deaths- becoming a bigger killer than cancer is today.

Resistance to antibiotics occurs naturally with use, making it essential that we use these drugs sparingly, for the treatment of disease, where prevention and other methods of treatment have failed. Instead, the irresponsible use of antibiotics is a major driver of resistance.  Farm animals consume two thirds of the world’s antibiotics. These vital drugs are often routinely added to feed to make animals grow faster or to counter unsanitary conditions in factory farming facilities.

This week is also the one year anniversary of the publication of research showing that the threat from Colistin resistance was far greater than previously realised. Colistin is one of the antibiotics on the World Health Organization’s critically important list. It is used in human medicine as a drug of last resort- something to be prescribed when other antibiotics have failed. Colistin resistant infections in food animals and humans are spreading around the world.This is being driven by agricultural use of Colistin, which continues to rise year on year.

Our campaign #AntibioticsOffTheMenu is about calling on global food businesses to end the routine use of all antibiotics included on the World Health Organization’s list of critically important antibiotics. This week we have published an open letter to the CEOs of KFC, Subway and McDonald’s calling on them to make global commitments to end the routine use of all antibiotics included on the World Health Organization’s list of medically important antimicrobials, in all of their livestock supply chains. This means prohibiting suppliers from using these antibiotics for growth promotion or disease prevention and only using these antibiotics when there has been a diagnosis of illness.

Global food brands like KFC, Subway and McDonald’s are in a position to make an impact on the antibiotic resistance crisis, faster than legislation alone. Subway and McDonald’s have already made commitments in North America. In the USA Subway has committed to only source meat and poultry raised on no antibiotics. McDonald’s USA already serves chicken in the raised without the routine use of any of the antibiotics from the WHO list, with McDonald’s Canada soon to follow.

We welcome the progress by Subway and McDonald’s in North America but action in one country or one region is simply not enough. Antibiotic resistance does not respect national boundaries.  Our food and farming systems are more globalised now than ever. Resistant bacteria spread from the guts of farm animals via faeces, air, soil, water, contact with farm workers, contaminated meat.

The response to the antibiotic resistance crisis the world is now facing will need to be multifaceted. Prudent use in human medicine, better hygiene in health care and the development of new drugs will be needed.  We cannot escape public health disaster unless we tackle agricultural use of antibiotics.

The World Health Organization, the UN, the G20, governments, scientists, consumer and environmental advocates, academics and medical professionals all over the world are calling for urgent action to stop the threat of antibiotic resistance.  Global, consumer facing food brands should act now, and act globally.

Overuse of Antibiotics, the Chilean consumer perspective

Speech by Stefan Larenas, President of  Chilean CI Member ODECU at Intelligence Squared debate: The End of Antibiotics? at New York Academy of Sciences, 14th September 2016

I am happy to speak to you on the important topic of preserving the effectiveness of antibiotics. This requires reducing antibiotic use in humans AND in food animal production. And I would like to say I speak here not just for Chilean consumers but also for other Latin American consumer organizations. My organization has been working since 2005 to research products and services and raise consumer awareness in Chile.

We are very concerned that there is very high use of antibiotics in the production of poultry and salmon, both of which are exported as well as consumed within Chile.

In poultry production, according to research by a Chilean university, colistin is the main antibiotic used in pork and poultry production preventatively. In Chile, this drug has the approval of the Agriculture and Farming Service.

We are concerned, as public health officials are all over the world, about recent data showing resistance to colistin in both food animals and in sick people. Colistin is an antibiotic doctors use when everything else fails. If resistance develops to this antibiotic too, in some situations doctors will be left with nothing to treat a sick patient.

Antibiotic use in salmon production, which is a very big industry in Chile, is also extremely high, much higher than in other countries. In Chile in 2013, more than 500,000 kilograms of antimicrobials were used in salmon production.

Whereas in Norway, which produced almost 50 percent more salmon, the industry used only 972 kilograms of antimicrobials. This is a shocking difference. The Chilean industry uses more than 900 times as much antimicrobials per kilogram of salmon as Norway does. Most disturbingly, a Norwegian company operates salmon farms in Chile. Why don’t they use the same standards and practices?

Because of our concerns, the Chilean consumer organization is participating in the Consumers International campaign, called “Antibiotics Off the Menu”, to persuade global fast food chains McDonalds, Subway and KFC to eliminate antibiotics, or at least antibiotics important in human medicine, from the food they serve in their restaurants. Consumer awareness of this problem in rising globally—in March of this year 90 consumer organizations joined this campaign.

A new report on US fast food chains, called Chain Reaction 2, is coming out next week. I understand that in North America, McDonald's has completely eliminated all medically important antibiotics in the production of the chicken it serves in its restaurants. Why, I have to ask, have they not done this in South America? This is a double standard. If their suppliers can do this in the USA, one would think they could explain to their suppliers in Chile how to raise chicken without medically important antibiotics.

Overuse of antibiotics is a global problem. Superbugs do not know national borders. When antibiotic resistance emerges in one place it travels rapidly around the world. So while action in the US, or Norway, is vitally important, we also need action in Chile and everywhere else food animals are raised. Antibiotic use must be limited to curing sickness in animals, just as it is in humans, not used to promote growth or prevent disease in factory farming conditions. We hope the nations of the world will take action on this serious problem at the UN High Level meeting on 21st September.

Averting an antibiotic apocalypse? Time for global restaurants chains to take action

Amanda Long, Director General at Consumers International, reacts to McDonald's recent announcement that it has finished implementing its commitments on chicken in the USA.

Consumers International and its Members are calling on KFC, McDonald’s and Subway to take meat raised on antibiotics important for human medicine off their menus globally.

At the beginning of this month McDonald’s USA announced that it had achieved its goal, of serving only chicken raised without antibiotics important to human medicine, eight months ahead of schedule.  The announcement came in the run up to a UN High Level meeting on anti-microbial resistance, taking place in New York on 21^st September.

Because of overuse, resistance to existing antibiotics is rising at alarming levels, and there is a dearth of new drugs being brought to market. Without antibiotics that work, infections, small cuts and minor surgeries could once again become killers.

Left unchecked, antimicrobial resistance (the collective term for resistance to all kinds of antimicrobial drugs, of which bacterial resistance to antibiotics is the most pressing) will kill 10 million a year by 2050 – more than cancer. It is already killing 700,000 a year. We are on the brink of what Professor Dame Sally Davies, UK Chief Medical Officer has called an antibiotic apocalypse. 

Despite these dire warnings, animals destined to end up in our burgers, sausages and nuggets are being pumped full of antibiotics.  In many cases, rather than being used to treat sick animals, antibiotics are being used to make them grow faster or to prevent the cramped unsanitary conditions they are kept in from making them sick.  The more we use antibiotics, the more bacteria develop resistance to them.

There is strong consensus that measures to limit the use of antibiotics in farming should be a first port of call for the world’s decision makers. The use of antibiotics in farm animals exceeds use in humans in many countries and globally is believed to be more than 50% of use.  In the USA, more than 70% of antibiotics use is agricultural.  Furthermore the use of antibiotics in farming is set to increase by two thirds from by 2030: from 63,200 tons in 2010, to 105,600 tons in 2030.  The rise is driven by our monumental and growing global meat consumption.

So what has McDonalds actually done and will it make any difference?  McDonald’s has ended the use of antibiotics listed as critically important for human medicine by the World Health Organization in its poultry supply in the USA and has pledged to do the same in Canada. 

In taking this action, McDonald’s has gone further than some other chains in the USA.   KFC, which has a larger number of restaurants in the USA than any other chicken chain and is the second highest in sales has not gone as far.  It has said it will stop using just a handful of highest priority critically important antibiotics from the WHO list.   KFC is under increasing pressure to go further.  Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, (also subsidiaries of the Yum! Brands) have recently committed to serving chicken to its US customers raised without any of the antibiotics from the full WHO list. On 9 August, Yum! investors filed a shareholder resolution calling for KFC to follow suit.

On the other hand, there are chains in the USA that have gone further than McDonald’s.  Whereas McDonalds has only taken this action for the chicken it serves, Subway has committed to using chicken, turkey, beef, and pork raised without any antibiotics.  In a report from a coalition of consumer and environmental groups last year Chipotle, Panera and Chick-Fil-A, were given A and B grades for their antibiotic policies whereas McDonald’s was given a C.

The fact remains however, that these global chains are failing to make the same commitments outside of the USA. Whilst it is commendable that McDonald’s has acted in the USA and Canada, where around 43% of its branches are located, it has not committed to act on pork or beef and has not made the same commitment on chicken in other parts of the world.  McDonald’s in Europe has said that it will stop the use of some important antibiotics in the chicken it serves, but fails to go as far as McDonald in the USA and McDonald in Canada.   KFC and Subway have yet to make announcements anywhere outside of North America.

Of course we welcome any progress in this area and we don’t suggest that the sole power to prevent an antibiotic apocalypse rests entirely with a few fast food chains – but these are significant players and can lead the way.  When world leaders meet at the UN in September we will need strong, concerted, action on all fronts; including reducing use of antibiotics in human health and animal health and tackling the development of new drugs.

Given the scale of the global public health crisis the world is facing now due to antibiotic resistance, making partial commitments is simply not an option.  There is no plan B.

KFC, McDonald’s and Subway can and must go further. As awareness of the threat we are facing grows among consumers and politicians, they will be left with little choice. Far better to commit now, to work to set the standard for their industry globally, than be forced to catch up later.

Join us now in the call to take Antibiotics off the Menu.