The poultry industry has quietly begun to bow to the demands of public health and consumer groups by greatly reducing the antibiotics that are fed to healthy chickens.
Long a mainstay of poultry farming, antibiotics have been justified as a means of preventing infection in chickens as well as enhancing growth. Opponents have bitterly criticized the industry for a strategy that they say contributes to a much larger public health problem: the growing resistance to antibiotics of disease-causing bacteria in humans.
Now it appears that, with little fanfare, the industry has begun to acquiesce. Three companies - Tyson Foods, Perdue Farms and Foster Farms, which produce a third of the chicken consumed by Americans each year - say they have voluntarily taken most or all of the antibiotics out of what they feed healthy chickens. In addition, the industry is turning away from an antibiotic used to treat sick birds because it is related to Cipro, the drug used to treat anthrax in humans. Some corporate consumers, including McDonald's, Wendy's and Popeye's, won't buy chicken that has been treated with it.
Despite the overall decrease in antibiotic use, there is no way for the consumer to know whether one of these companies' chickens has been treated with antibiotics. This is especially true of drugs used to treat sick chickens. Treating a few sick birds requires treating the entire flock, and flocks often number more than 30,000. The only way consumers can be certain the chickens have not been treated with antibiotics is to buy those labeled antibiotic-free, or organic.
Many opponents of the prevailing agricultural practices see these developments as a major step toward combating antibiotic resistance. But in the absence of any monitoring by the federal government, some remain skeptical about assertions that antibiotic use has been reduced. Because farmers are not required to report antibiotic use in animals, the reduction cannot be documented.
For more than 20 years, poultry producers have stoutly defended the use of antibiotics. The National Chicken Council, an industry trade association, maintains that antibiotics have always been used responsibly. "People well aware of antibiotic resistance in the industry are skeptical that we are the root of the problems," said Richard Lobb, spokesman for the council.
