McDonald's Canada is reducing the use of antibiotics in the chicken it sources. Over the next three years, it will be phasing out chicken raised with antibiotics that are important to human medicine, but will continue to source chicken raised with ionophores, a class of antibiotics not used in humans.

The shift away from antibiotics is becoming a trend among fast-food restaurants, with A&W now serving only chicken raised without antibiotics, and Subway pledging to phase out meat raised with antibiotics from their U.S. restaurants.

Steve Leech with Chicken Farmers of Canada says this is also consistent with the direction Canada's chicken industry is headed, noting last year the industry eliminated the preventative use of antibiotics most critical to human health.

"Certainly we've been looking at further reduction steps and what can be done," he says, "It's not a question of immediately changing the way things are done. We have to remember we're dealing with living organisms, and we have to make sure animal welfare is maintained. That's of utmost importance."

Part of the consumer concern comes from the idea that overuse of antibiotics could lead to antibiotic resistance. Dr. Leigh Rosengren of Rosengren Epidemiological Consulting says as antibiotic use has become a hot topic in media and advertising, producers are looking to keep their right to use these medications, while also looking at ways to do so in a way that helps combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

"The main message is that we need to retain antibiotics in veterinary medicine," Rosengren says after her presentation on antibiotic use at this week's Manitoba Pork meeting in Portage la Prairie. "It's critical for protecting the health and welfare of our animals, but doing so means we have to do so responsible so that the benefit of using those drugs outweighs any potential risk to human health."

As more restaurants, and in turn producers, move away from antibiotic use, Chicken Farmers' Steve Leech says it's important that Canada approves more antibiotic alternatives.

"That is one of the things we're lacking as we compare ourselves to the United States or the European Union. We don't have as many antibiotic alternatives products, whether they be probiotics, prebiotics, enzymes, these types of things," he says. "I think it's clear there's no silver bullet that can just be an automatic replacement for antibiotics, there's a number of different factors that go into it, and it's going to be different from one farm to another depending on the disease pressures that farm has."

Leech says there is a lot of questions and concerns from consumers right now, and education would go along way in terms of talking about what antibiotics are used and why.