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Tyson Foods (New York Stock Exchange: TSN) is reintroducing antibiotics into its chicken supply chain, and will drop the words “no antibiotics whatsoever” from certain products, the Wall Street Journal reports.
This will apply to all Tyson brand fresh, frozen and prepared products It will include medicines that are not important to human health. The measure will be in effect by the end of the year.
The antibiotic that Tyson (TSN) plans to add to the chicken’s diet is called ionto-acid, according to the report. He said Citing sources that are used to control coccidiosis in poultry. The World Health Organization does not consider ionophores to be clinically important for the treatment of human disease.
Industry experts have said that zero-use antibiotic programs are costly for companies like Tyson (TSN), which produce larger birds. Reintroducing some Tyson (TSN) antibiotics can help save money and improve poultry health.
Tyson (TSN) pledged to stop using antibiotics in its poultry in 2017, as it bet consumers would pay a higher price for meat produced without the drugs.
Ionophores are considered antibiotics in the United States, but not in other parts of the world, such as Europe, where they are classified as antibacterials. An analysis by Mississippi State University found that this would hurt poultry business in the US because programs that do not use antibiotics abroad use ionophores.