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The largest fast food chain in the world has made a huge announcement. McDonald's says they are changing what types of food to serve to its customers. Your fast food order from McDonald's will now contain less antibiotics, according to a press release from the company. They are making this move to hopefully make their customers more healthy and less resistant to antibiotics in the future.

“McDonalds believes antibiotics resistance is a critical public health issue, an we take seriously our unique position to use out scale for good to continue to address this challenge,” said Keith Kenny, McDonald's Global Vice President of Sustainability said.

The process to cut back on the amount of antibiotics consumed is very calculated. The company has a three step process to make it happen:

• First, McDonalds is partnering with supplying beef producers in their top 10 beef sourcing markets to measure and understand current usage of antibiotics across a diverse, global supply chain;
• By the end of 2020 McDonalds will establish reduction targets for medically important antibiotics for these markets; and
• Starting in 2022 will be reporting progress against antibiotic reduction targets across their top 10 beef sourcing markets.

You can read about the full policy specifics here.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), antibiotics resistance is one of the top problems affecting humans today. According to their press release, that’s why McDonalds is taking this so seriously.

“With our new policy, McDonald’s is doing our part to help preserve the effectiveness of antibiotics for human and animal health in the future.”

The last time McDonalds made a change to their antibiotic use in beef was more than a decade ago in 2003. To further demonstrate how seriously they take this commitment to reduce antibiotic consumption, McDonalds has also partnered with the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and joined the CDC’s Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Challenge.

The AMR Challenge was created in September of this year, and will last one year. In the next 12 months the CDC hopes more companies, like McDonalds, will join them in their to decrease antibiotic consumption.