An environmental group wants Kentucky Fried Chicken to stop using antibiotics in its chicken and slammed the company’s decision to celebrate National Fried Chicken Day on Wednesday, which the group said is a “bogus holiday.”
In a letter to Natural Resource Defense Council members, Rhea Suh, the group’s president, said KFC needs to take its chickens off antibiotics for the good of human health.
“Shockingly, 70 percent of all medically-important antibiotics sold in the U.S. are used on animals like chickens and pigs, not people,” Suh said, “Now, with factory farms becoming breeding grounds for superbugs, drug-resistant infections in people are on the rise — and our doctors have fewer and fewer ways to treat those illnesses when we get sick.”
Suh urged environmentalists to sign a petition to get KFC to stop using antibiotics on its chicken, which 30,000 NRDC members have signed already.
Environmentalist protestations have prompted McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, Taco Bell and Subway all stop using antibiotics in their chicken, with Subway no longer allowing the use of antibiotics in any of its meat.
Getting KFC to stop using antibiotics in its chicken would be a real moment to celebrate, Suh said. Unlike National Fried Chicken Day.
“Let’s be honest: It’s a bogus holiday,” she said.
