McDonald’s and Walmart beef suppliers criticised for ‘reckless’ antibiotics use

Many US cattle farmers routinely use antibiotics often for months on end. Photograph: Steven Senne/AP

Suppliers of beef to McDonald’s, Taco Bell and Walmart are sourcing meat from US farms that use antibiotics linked to the spread of dangerous superbugs, an investigation has found.

Unpublished US government records obtained by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Guardian show farms producing beef for meat packing firms Cargill, JBS, and Green Bay are risking public health by still using antibiotics classed as the “highest priority critically important” to human health (HP-CIAs).