Urge Nation's Turkey Producers To End Unsafe Practice

Turkeys

and other food animals are regularly given antibiotics in their feed to promote faster growth and to prevent diseases caused by overcrowded conditions in animal factory farms. This practice has serious consequences for our health because it causes bacteria to develop resistance to these drugs. When a person gets sick from resistant bacteria, their prescribed antibiotics will not work.

This holiday season, we encourage you to buy turkeys labeled “organic” or “raised without antibiotics” and to sign this petition telling the nation’s big turkey producers—including Butterball and Jennie-O—to protect our health and stop putting these important drugs in animal feed.

Sample Letter for Campaign

Subject: Full Petition Text:

Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

We, the undersigned, urge you to end the dangerous practice of adding antibiotics to the feed and water of turkeys that are not sick for purposes including growth promotion and disease prevention.

This practice has grave consequences for human health. Overuse of antibiotics can make these drugs less effective in treating the thousands of people who fall ill due to bacterial infections every year, and new antibiotics are not being developed fast enough to keep up.

Other poultry companies have demonstrated that drastic cutbacks in antibiotic use are possible through improvements in animal living conditions--including providing more room per animal, increasing ventilation, and conducting more frequent cleanings of animal quarters.

We urge you to protect our health and the health of our families by ending the use of antibiotics in turkeys that are not sick.

Signed by:

Campaign Launched:
November 17, 2006

Background Information

Most antibiotics produced in the United States are added to the feed and water of animals being raised for human consumption. These antibiotics are not intended to treat sick animals, but to accelerate growth and prevent diseases caused by overcrowded and unsanitary conditions on "factory" farms. This overuse of antibiotics in animal agriculture has serious consequences for our health. As bacteria develop resistance to these drugs, doctors are forced to prescribe antibiotics that are more costly and have more serious side effects. And even these more powerful antibiotics are losing their effectiveness to treat disease.

The Keep Antibiotics Working coalition has long pressed poultry and livestock companies to adopt a more responsible approach to antibiotic use in order to curb the increasing incidence of human diseases that are antibiotic resistant. Antibiotics are misused when these drugs are added to the feed of animals that are not sick to promote faster animal growth and to prevent diseases before they occur—a practice that compensates for the overcrowded and unsanitary conditions on animal factory farms.

Scientists have established clear links between overuse of these drugs and the emergence of antibiotic-resistant illnesses. These hardier diseases are more severe, persist longer, and force doctors to prescribe drugs that cost more and cause more serious side effects.

While medical professionals across the country are working hard to curb unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions for sick human patients, the vast majority of these precious drugs are still used indiscriminately in animal feed.