Perdue Chickens Soon to be Antibiotic Free; Public Health Advocates Hope the Move Will Be an Industry-Leading Step [PHOTO]

According to NPR, this past Wednesday Perdue Farms said that it will no longer be injecting antibiotics into eggs that are about to hatch. Perdue Foods is the nation's third-largest chicken producer, and its momentous decision is big news in the world of food policy, farming, and antibiotic use.

Wired reports that the company said in a Washington, DC press conference that it has ceased using antibiotics for growth promotion or for disease prevention, using antibiotics that are more important in human medicine in 95% of its birds, and injecting meat chicken with antibiotics while still in the shell. This is a big change, as just five years ago Perdue used antibiotics with 100% of its chickens.

According to USA Today, Perdue will still use antibiotics with about 5% of its chickens, but only for a few days when prescribed by a veterinarian for a specific problem. The process of weaning their chickens off of antibiotics wasn't an easy one to make - getting to this point took about 12 years.

The company's CEO, Jim Perdue, stated, "You can't do this overnight... You really got to work hard at it. And that's why it's an exciting thing, because it's the culmination of a lot, a lot of effort." Perdue told NPR that when they first tried using fewer antibiotics, a lot of chickens got sick and died.

Perdue went on to say, "Coupled with information coming from the USDA and FDA and other sources, we began to look critically at our actions. It wasn't easy, but we found along the way that we could raise healthy chickens with fewer antibiotics." NPR reports that the company started by making sure the hens laying the eggs were healthy, and that the eggs were clean prior to arriving to their hatcheries.

Public health advocates hope that other firms will follow suit and begin to use antibiotics less frequently. Their concern behind routine antibiotic use in animals is that many of the drugs used on farms are the same drugs used to prevent human disease, and that antibiotic-resistant bacteria will form and threaten human consumers. It is hoped that Perdue's initiative will reduce the amount of antibiotic resistance, and the human illnesses associated with it.