US chicken chain drops “no antibiotic” pledge

Chick-fil-a, a US fast food chain, is ending its “no antibiotics ever” pledge, as supplies fall for high quality poultry. The company follows megaproducer Tyson and others in switching to the less restrictive “no antibiotics important to human medicine” label (NAIHM). NAIHM is actually an effective policy. The EU and UK have been developing similar regulations since 2006 and have seen a sharp decline in the use of medically important antibiotic use. The US hasn’t. Despite a ban on antibiotics for enhancing growth in 2017, their use increased. Factory farmers have been using the same drugs in the same doses for “disease prevention” while enjoying the perk of up to 50 per cent quicker growth in livestock. The US used more medically important antibiotics in its food chain than the EU and UK combined in 2020. Moves by companies like Chick-fil-a are indicative of a diseased US food system.