Hope Magazine | May/June issue | Lane Fisher, Editor | THREE MAJOR FAST-FOOD CHAINS have decided to just say no to chickens that have been treated with Cipro-related antibiotics. McDonald's, Wendy's, and Popeye's restaurant chains have gone public with the news that they no longer will purchase chicken treated with fluoroquinolone antibiotics. These chains join poultry and meat labels that have sworn off antibiotic-raised stock, a movement that may encourage growers to shift their practices. It's estimated that eight times more antibiotics are given to healthy cows, pigs, and birds each year than are used to treat all of the sick people in this country. Why? To enable more animals at factory farms to survive unhealthy conditions--overcrowding and no access to fresh air and pasture--and quickly reach market weight. The problem is that the practice speeds development of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, and, no surprise, the Centers for Disease Control are linking low-level antibiotic use in food animals to meat contaminated with resistant bacteria. People infected by them are harder to treat, responding poorly, if at all. But there's a way to find meat and poultry that have been grown without antibiotics. Keep Antibiotics Working sponsors a Web site to help consumers identify local, regional, and national sources of meat and poultry raised without the drugs. Keep Antibiotics Working is a coalition of eleven members, including Environmental Defense, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Institute for Agricultural and Trade Policy, and Physicians for Social Responsibility. Want to do more? Don't forget to mention to your supermarket meat manager that this issue influences your shopping choices. --LF with Keep Antibiotics Working and Environmental Defense MORE INFORMATION: www.keepantibioticsworking.com Hope Magazine:
