030139 McDonald’s Supports Ban on Cipro-Like Drugs in Feed

Washington - McDonald's Corp. has testified that it supports and is complying with the FDA's proposed ban on flouroquinolone antibiotics in poultry, drawing praise from the Keep Antibiotics Working Campaign. The company "ceased purchasing poultry meat from birds treated with fluoroquinolones for our U.S. restaurants" after it "concluded that considerable evidence supported serious concerns about fluoroquinolones...There has been no change in the quality, taste, price or consumer acceptance of our chicken products," according to the Dec. 9 written testimony by McDonald's Vice President for Worldwide Quality Assurance, Kenneth Koziol.

McDonald's "'withdrawal of the use of fluoroquinolones in poultry' provides compelling support for FDA's proposal to ban such use," said Peter Coppelman, Director of Keep Antibiotics Working, in a letter praising the Oak Brook, IL-based company "for its ongoing leadership on this important public health issue."

The FDA proposed the ban on fluoroquinolones in October 2000, based on CDC data showing a rapid rise in antibiotic resistance by Campylobacter bacteria to Cipro and other fluoroquinolones since the FDA approved fluoroquinolones for poultry in 1995. Cipro is a key drug in treating severe food poisoning caused by Campylobacter. A national study published in the current issue of Consumer Reports showed 38% of the chickens CR bought were contaminated with Campylobacter resistant to one or more antibiotics. The CDC estimates Campylobacter causes 2 million illnesses and 100 deaths a year.

One drug maker of fluoroquinolones for poultry, Chicago-based Abbott Laboratories, immediately complied with the proposed ban. The other drug maker of fluoroquinolones for poultry, the Pittsburgh- based Bayer Corporation, has fought it for over two years.

"We can only hope that Bayer Corporation will abandon its regrettable opposition to the FDA's proposed ban, and let the withdrawal of the use of fluoroquinolones in poultry take effect in the name of sound science and the public good," concluded the KAW letter.

McDonald's testified it conferred with its two poultry suppliers, Keystone Foods LLC and the nation's top poultry producer, Tyson Foods, before requiring them to stop using fluoroquinolones: "We learned Keystone had ceased using fluoroquinolones in broilers some time ago. Tyson volunteered to stop using the drugs if that was what we wished."

In addition to Tyson, five of the other top 20 U.S. poultry producers say they no longer use fluoroquinolones in chickens produced for human consumption, including Gold Kist (No. 2), ConAgra Poultry (No. 4), Perdue Farms (No. 5), Foster Farms (No. 9), and Claxton No. 19).

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