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McDonald's Corp said on Tuesday it plans to reduce the use of antibiotics in its global beef supply, fueling projections that other restaurants will follow suit. The move by the world's biggest fast-food chain addresses concerns that the overuse of antibiotics vital to fighting human infections in farm animals may diminish the drugs' effectiveness in people. (12/11)

McDonald’s and many other fast-food chains already have eliminated the use of such antibiotics in chicken in the U.S., and McDonald’s is aiming to do so in other markets around the world. Reducing the use of such antibiotics in beef has been more difficult for McDonald’s, because of the company’s scale and the smaller number of suppliers that produce beef without the medicine. (Jargon, 12/11)

“I think it’s a promising step forward to preserve antibiotics,” said Matthew Wellington, Antibiotics Program Director of U.S. PIRG and U.S. PIRG Education Fund, a public interest research group. ...Use of antibiotics in livestock to not only treat sick animals but also prevent disease has raised concerns that overuse is causing more drug-resistant disease in humans. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated, conservatively, that 23,000 Americans die each year from antibiotic resistance, but other research puts the number much higher. A recent study from researchers at Washington University Medical School in St. Louis found 150,000 deaths from antibiotic-resistant infections in the U.S. in 2010. (Elejalde-Ruiz, 12/11)

More than 28,000 pounds of Jimmy Dean sausage has been recalled over metal tainting fears in meat distributed to 21 states, the company said Tuesday, in a move to protect consumers from products that pose the greatest health risk under the Agriculture Department’s recall regulations. Five consumer complaints of metal-infused sausage led the agency’s food safety office to trigger the alert, the USDA said, after the sausage left a Tennessee-based facility and was distributed across the country. No health impacts have been reported as of Tuesday, the agency said. (Horton, 12/11)