Fast food chains asked to stop serving meat with antibiotics

Consumer organisations worldwide, including Test-Achats, have sent a joint letter to fast food chains asking them to stop using meat that has been treated with antibiotics. The organisations are meeting in Brazil this week at an international congress.

Test-Achats addressed the companies active in Belgium, principally McDonald’s, Subway and Quick, asking them to clarify their position on antibiotics in meat production and requesting that they stop serving meat that has been routinely treated with antibiotics.

In Europe, antibiotics are still routinely used by farmers to prevent diseases caused by conditions involved in intensive farming. In the US, where many of the larger fast food companies are based, antibiotics are often used as a growth stimulator.

However, the medical profession is generally agreed that the over-use of antibiotics causes growing resistance in the bacteria being treated, eventually making the drugs useless both for animals and for humans.

Half of all antibiotics produced in the world are used in meat production. In Belgium, the knowledge centre tracking antibiotic use (AMCRA) announced this week that use of the drugs in 2014 went up by 1.1% – the first increase following a years-long downward trend.

“We are asking for antibiotics to be used only for sick animals and only used as prevention in animals that are in close contact with sick animals,” explained Simon November of Test-Achats. “People do not realise that resistance to antibiotics in humans is often caused by exaggerated use in agriculture.” The chains have been asked to reply by 23 December.

Meanwhile, an international study on the use of antibiotics has shown that the drugs are usually prescribed without much consideration and for too long a period of time.

The results of the study, co-ordinated by professor Herman Goossens of Antwerp University (UA), were presented yesterday at a workshop in Brussels on the occasion of European Antibiotics Day.

The survey was carried out among about 26,400 patients at 100 hospitals in Belgium. More than one-quarter of the patients stated that they received antibiotics while in hospital. “University hospitals, with their highly specialised care facilities, had the highest number of patients receiving antibiotics: on average 33%,” said Goossens in a statement.

The hospital with the highest percentage of patients receiving antibiotics, however – about 52% – was a general hospital. Names of hospitals were not cited in the study.

The most popular antibiotic was amoxicillin, with 28% of patients who took antibiotics receiving it. In the case of pneumonia, 4% of Belgian patients were prescribed the long-acting moxifloxacin, compared to a European average of 0.3%.

Belgium scores well on the prescription of pre-operative antibiotics and on informing patients about the reasons for using antibiotics, but stopping or re-evaluating the period of use was insufficient, the report stated.

“Some hospitals are doing very well, but others clearly fail to create or to enforce an antibiotics policy,” said Goossens, “even though the federal government allocates an annual budget to hospitals to invest in a proper antibiotics policy.”

Photo courtesy Quick