Chick-fil-A will drop its decade-long commitment to serving antibiotic-free chicken, the fast food company announced Monday. Starting this spring, the chicken chain's "No Antibiotics Ever" pledge, launched in 2014, will shift to a "No Antibiotics Important To Human Medicine" (NAIHM) pledge, the firm said in its statement. The move comes as poultry farmers across the country have seen their flocks devastated by the current avian flu outbreak and have been struggling to keep supply up as a result, NBC News reports. Tyson Foods, for example, already dropped its own "No Antibiotics Ever" pledge last July, similarly explaining that it would be using "non-medically important antibiotics" in some chicken, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time. Completely antibiotic-free chicken has become increasingly difficult to source.
Chick-fil-A says its chicken will still be free of added fillers, artificial preservatives, steroids, and added hormones, and that animal-specific antibiotics will only be given if a chicken and those around it become sick (The NAIHM rules still prohibit the use of antibiotics for any reason other than treating illnesses, meaning they cannot be used to promote animal growth). Health officials have long warned that humans' increasing resistance to antibiotics is partially due to the widespread use of such drugs in livestock, the Washington Post reports. But the Food and Drug Administration says that using antibiotics commonly used to treat human ailments is more of a concern in animals than using drugs that are specifically meant to treat animal illnesses. (More Chick-fil-A stories.)
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