This year's Chain Reaction report and scorecard focuses on antibiotic use policies and practices for beef sold in the top 25 U.S. burger chains.
Our survey shows that only two chains, Shake Shack and BurgerFi, source beef raised without the routine use of antibiotics. Most other chains have no public antibiotic use policy.
The growth and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a global health crisis, threatening to create a future in which common infections could once again become life-threatening on a large scale. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) consider antibiotic-resistant bacteria among the top threats to global public health, and the CDC estimates that each year, at least 23,000 Americans die from resistant infections.
The overuse of antibiotics in livestock production significantly contributes to the spread of antibiotic resistance. The more antibiotics are used, the more bacteria become immune to them. More than 70 percent of the medically important antibiotics sold in the U.S. go to food animals. Fast food restaurants, as some of America's largest meat buyers, can play an instrumental role in pushing meat producers to use antibiotics responsibly.
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