McDonald’s shareholders show support for Antibiotics off the Menu

Consumers International welcomes the news that, at the McDonald’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) held yesterday at the company’s head office in Oak Brook, Illinois, USA, over 22% of shareholders backed a resolution calling for the company to make global commitments to end the routine use of antibiotics in their meat and poultry supply chains. This resolution echoes the call of our campaign, Antibiotics off the Menu, which launched in November 2015 and also targets KFC and Subway.

The resolution, tabled at the AGM by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility and the As You Sow Foundation, called for McDonald’s board to update the 2015 McDonald’s Global Vision for Antimicrobial Stewardship in Food Animals and for the company to:

• Prohibit the use of antibiotics important to human medicine globally in its meat and poultry supply chains;
• Identify timelines for global implementation of vision to include all meat and poultry.

We are also calling on Subway to extend its commitments beyond the USA to the rest of the world. KFC has yet to make any meaningful commitments anywhere. Between them McDonald’s, KFC and Subway have over 100,000 outlets. As global brands these multinational fast food chains are in a strong position to set the standard for their industry globally and drive a decrease in the agricultural use of antibiotics, faster than legislative change alone.

Consumers International published a report in February 2016 looking at the global commitments of McDonald’s, KFC and Subway. McDonald’s made commitments in 2015 to stop serving its US and Canadian customers chicken that had been raised on antibiotics classified as important for human medicine by the World Health Organization. These commitments do not extend beyond North America, nor to other types of meat and poultry served in the US and Canada. 

Subway has committed to sourcing all of its meat and poultry from animals raised without any antibiotics. However, this commitment only applies to the USA. KFChas made no meaningful commitment to sourcing meat raised without the use of antibiotics important for human medicine in any of the countries in which it operates.  

Deaths from antimicrobial resistance are predicted to reach 10 million per year by 2050.  Around half of the antibiotics produced globally are used in agriculture, with much of this being used to make animals grow faster and to prevent rather than treat disease. Antibiotic resistant bacteria spread from farms to people through air, soil, water, manure and the consumption of contaminated meat and animal products. 

The World Health Organization maintains a list of Critically Important Antimicrobials for Human Medicine. We are calling for any drug listed as critically important, highly important or important to only be used in veterinary medicine to treat sick animals and, on rare occasions, for non-routine disease control if disease has been identified in other close contact animals.

Classes of drugs classified as Highest Priority Critically Important Antimicrobials should not be used in veterinary medicine. None of these drugs should ever be used for growth, feed efficiency, or for routine disease prevention. The WHO list is available here.

Read the resolution by ICCR and As You Sow in full here.