December, 10 2018, 11:00pm EDT
McDonald's Commits to Reducing Antibiotic Use in its Global Beef Supply
Action by world’s largest burger chain could signal shift for fast food industry
WASHINGTON
McDonald's, the world's largest and most iconic burger restaurant chain, today announced it will address antibiotics use across its global beef supply chain by 2021. The new policy directs its global suppliers to reduce use of the drugs in beef produced for the company, with implementation beginning next year with pilot projects in 10 markets around the world, including the U.S. The Natural Resources Defense Council has been a stakeholder engaged on the policy since early 2018.
McDonald's is the first major burger chain to announce a comprehensive antibiotic use reduction policy for all beef sold by its restaurants--and the largest, by far. It joins a small group of other fast food industry leaders that have either cut antibiotic use in their beef supplies or are committed to do so, including Chipotle, Panera and Subway.
A statement follows from Lena Brook, Interim Director of Food and Agriculture at the Natural Resources Defense Council:
"This important step forward raises the bar for other burger chains and sends an unmistakable market signal to beef producers worldwide. Nobody in the world sells more burgers than McDonald's, and their actions can shape the future of the industry. With Washington asleep at the wheel on this rising health threat, leadership in the marketplace is essential. We will be watching with great interest to see how this policy unfolds."
Background
More medically important antibiotics are sold for use in cows than people or any other animal. In the U.S., about 95 percent of drugs given to livestock and poultry are routinely distributed en masse in feed or water--often to animals that are not sick to help them survive crowded and unsanitary conditions on industrial farms.
This practice contributes to the rise and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and increases the risk of drug-resistant infections in humans. Leading medical experts warn that we must stop overuse of antibiotics in human medicine and animal agriculture, or else the life-saving drugs we rely on to treat common infections and enable medical procedures could increasingly stop working.
Conservatively, at least 2 million Americans are already infected with antibiotic-resistant infections every year, and at least 23,000 die as a direct result, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
More than half of the U.S. chicken industry--spurred by commitments from fast food chains and meat producers--is now under a commitment to address antibiotics overuse in its supply chain.
The beef industry, in contrast, has taken very little action to date. With 43 percent of medically important antibiotics sold to the U.S. livestock sector going to the beef industry--compared to only 6 percent for chicken--addressing overuse in beef production is critical to combat drug resistance.
NRDC works to safeguard the earth--its people, its plants and animals, and the natural systems on which all life depends. We combine the power of more than three million members and online activists with the expertise of some 700 scientists, lawyers, and policy advocates across the globe to ensure the rights of all people to the air, the water, and the wild.
(212) 727-2700LATEST NEWS
Trump's Reflecting Pool Disaster Exposed as More Details Revealed on Firm That Won No-Bid Contract
An expert analysis conducted this week found algae levels in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool at their highest levels in at least five years.
Jun 19, 2026
New reports have revealed the full scope of President Donald Trump's disastrous renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which the National Park Service this week has been scrambling to clean up.
A Thursday report in The New York Times revealed that the firm tapped to install the pool's water purification system, Greenwater Services, was given a $1.7 million contract that "bypassed the competitive-bidding process that is typically required" for such projects.
Even though Greenwater had only received one other federal contract in the past, NPS said it bypassed the normal bidding process on the grounds that "there was no time to consider other offers because the system had to be installed in time for events celebrating the country’s 250th birthday," reported the Times.
The Times also found that Greenwater is owned by JJ Cafaro Investment Trust, whose owner is a Trump donor and "a neighbor to Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private club in Florida."
The firm's work has come under scrutiny in recent days after a massive algae bloom erupted in the pool, which prompted NPS workers to dump containers of hydrogen peroxide into the water, which had turned a fluorescent green.
As noted by the Times, the NPS refilled the pool before Greenwater had installed a permanent water purification system, which the paper wrote raised "the risk that it would quickly be clouded with algae."
While algae blooms have long been common in the Reflecting Pool, The Washington Post on Thursday commissioned expert analysis of satellite imagery and determined that this year's bloom was the largest to occur in the last five years and that "algae levels spiked days after Trump’s renovation was completed."
Alana Menendez, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Virginia’s Department of Environmental Sciences, told the Post that there was more algae in the Reflecting Pool on the first week after its reopening than in any other June satellite images of the pool going all the way back to 2021.
Algae blooms aren't the only problem facing the pool, as CNN reported on Thursday that some of the blue material that had been installed at the bottom of the pool as part of the renovation has started peeling off.
Specifically, CNN said that its reporters "observed a flap of blue material that was partially attached to the bottom in one area of the pool and floating toward the top," although the network added that "it is unclear if the material is paint or sealant, and it's unclear what caused it to come up."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Out of Step' US Condemned for Trying to Erase Climate From Scientific Report for Antarctic Treaty
"This of course reflects Trump administration policy, which counters any focus on climate at international meetings," said a US researcher and former diplomat.
Jun 19, 2026
The Trump administration is under fire over its efforts to have any mention of the climate crisis removed from a scientific report, published this week, aimed at informing nations that are party to a global treaty designed to protect the Antarctic.
Details of the "diplomatic tensions" surrounding the report, which took place during a meeting in May with delegates from around the world focused on the Antarctic Treaty, were detailed by Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) correspondent Jano Gibson.
According to Gibson:
The report reveals that France took issue with the US's suggestion not to use broad terms such as "climate change" and instead refer to "specific" environmental changes.
"France … expressed it had strong concern about the gradual disappearance of references to climate change in the work of the Committee [for Environmental Protection]," the report states.
"France emphasized that climate change was a reality affecting all countries, regardless of borders.
Claire Christian, executive director of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, told ABC that there's zero controversy within the scientific community that a changing climate due to global warming is having deep impacts on the Antarctic region.
"The evidence is clear: the Antarctic region is undergoing rapid climate change, and this is already having significant effects on planetary systems," Christian said. "If we don't reduce our carbon emissions rapidly, these effects will only become more severe and unpredictable."
While a France warned that "refusing to even name climate change" would set "a dangerous precedent," Evan Bloom, a former US diplomat and Antarctic researcher involved in international negotiations on the topic said the position taken by the US at the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting was very much in keeping with the behavior and policies of President Donald Trump.
The US position, said Bloom, "shows how out of step the US is with most of the rest of the world on climate change. Yet, this of course reflects Trump administration policy, which counters any focus on climate at international meetings."
Keep ReadingShow Less
UN Experts Demands Nations ‘Break Their Silence’ as Trump, Hegseth Murder 3 More People at Sea
The Trump administration has killed at least 211 people by bombing boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean since last September.
Jun 19, 2026
As US senators pushed the Department of Defense to release unedited footage of the boat bombings the Trump administration has carried out in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean since last September, US Southern Command on Thursday announced that it had killed three more people in the operation that some international law experts have said amounts to mass murder and an extrajudicial killing spree.
As with the other announcements of boat bombings, at least 65 of which the US has now carried out, Southern Command released no evidence Thursday night of its claim that the vessel it bombed was “operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations,” “engaged in narco-trafficking operations," or that the three people killed were “narco-terrorists.”
Victims of the previous boat bombings have included fishermen and other people who had no involvement with drug trafficking, according to legal complaints filed by families.
Ben Saul, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, called on international governments to "break their silence and jointly condemn these murders," noting that the death toll of the administration's operation is now at least 211 people.
Some international officials, including French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot and Colombian President Gustavo Petro, have strongly denounced the boat bombings and accused Trump of breaking international law. Some countries have ended or dialed back intelligence sharing with the US. But human rights groups have called on the international community to take a unified stance against the boat strikes.
"Sick of hearing, 'I didn't know those boat strikes are still happening. Silence leaves the impression that this is somehow OK," said Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America on Thursday, adding that the US Coast Guard had called off its search for two survivors of an earlier boat bombing this week, potentially bringing the total death toll to 213.
President Donald Trump has claimed the US is engaged in an "armed conflict" with cartels in Latin America and has said the boat bombing campaign is aimed at stopping illegal drugs like fentanyl from flowing into the US. According to the US State Department's 2025 report on international narcotics control, Mexico is the "only significant source of illicit fentanyl and fentanyl analogues significantly affecting the United States," with the drug mainly entering the US via the southern border.
In an analysis of Customs and Border Protection data in April, Isacson emphasized that the lethal boat strikes have not stopped drugs from entering the US.
Even if the administration were targeting drug traffickers as it claims, bombing vessels involved in the drug trade is a violation of international laws protecting civilians from military force. Since the US is not officially engaged in an armed conflict with drug cartels, the accused "narco-terrorists" the Trump administration has killed have all been civilians.
Legal experts also say that US Southern Command's killing of survivors of initial strikes by bombing them again, would also be war crimes in an armed conflict.
Earlier this week, after another boat bombing that killed at least one person, Saul called for "those who ordered and carried out these crimes to be investigated, prosecuted, and punished, in line with international law."
On June 24, the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights are set to argue before the US District Court for the Southern District of New York for the immediate release of a secret legal memo authored by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, which the Trump administration has repeatedly claimed gives the president and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth the authority to kill people at sea.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular