USA, Springdale, Arkansas. According to Reuters, Tyson Foods Inc in June will switch its retail line of company-branded chicken products to birds raised without any antibiotics, a top executive said, accelerating the meat sector's shift away from the drugs.
Scientists have warned that the routine use of antibiotics to promote growth and prevent illness in healthy farm animals has contributed to rising numbers of dangerous human infections from antibiotic-resistant bacteria dubbed "superbugs."
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that at least 2 mill. people in the United States are infected with drug-resistant bacteria each year and that 23,000 die as a direct result. Tyson previously said it would remove antibiotics that are important to human medicine from its chicken production by autumn 2017.