{"id":1424,"date":"2022-04-04T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-04T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farmforward1.wpengine.com\/?p=1424"},"modified":"2023-01-13T13:30:42","modified_gmt":"2023-01-13T18:30:42","slug":"farm-forward-finds-drugs-in-certified-meat-at-whole-foods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/news\/farm-forward-finds-drugs-in-certified-meat-at-whole-foods\/","title":{"rendered":"Farm Forward Finds Drugs in Certified Meat at Whole Foods\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\t<section class=\"normal_content bg-white padding-top-small padding-bottom-large\" style=\"\">\n\t\t<div class=\"container\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"row center-md\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"col-md-7\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"content-styled\"><p>Farm Forward has found a variety of drugs, including an antibiotic, in meat certified as having \u201cno antibiotics, ever\u201d taken from products purchased from Whole Foods store shelves. The drugs, including fenbendazole, clopidol, and monensin, are used widely in conventional animal agriculture. The use of monensin is prohibited within the USDA Organic program and by Global Animal Partnership\u2019s (GAP\u2019s) Animal Welfare Certified\u2122 program, which certifies all meat sold in Whole Foods stores.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Sophisticated testing can reveal the truth about prohibited drugs fed to animals on factory farms, but these tests cannot reveal the extent to which these animals have suffered,&#8221; said Farm Forward executive director Andrew deCoriolis. &#8220;Whole Foods and GAP say that their products are humane and hope we\u2019ll take their word for it; our test results should give consumers pause.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Whole Foods relies on GAP\u2019s Animal Welfare Certified\u2122 program, one of the largest animal welfare certifications in the world, to ensure that the meat sold in its 511 stores is \u201chumane\u201d and contains \u201cno antibiotics, ever.\u201d GAP\u2019s Executive Director is an employee of Whole Foods and, alarmingly, one of the products that tested positive for Clopidol, a drug prohibited by USDA Organic but allowed by GAP, was produced by a company whose CEO is a member of GAP\u2019s board of directors, raising questions about GAP\u2019s motivations for permitting specific drugs within its program. Clopidol is commonly used to treat parasitic infections found primarily on industrial farms.<\/p>\n<p>Farm Forward served on GAP\u2019s board of directors for 12 years but <a href=\"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/news\/why-we-resigned-from-the-board-of-the-nations-largest-animal-welfare-certification\/\">resigned in 2020<\/a> over concerns that the certifier was failing to live up to its promises to shoppers. GAP\u2019s inability to enforce its standards was only one among several concerns. Another was its complicity in\u00a0humanewashing: GAP and Whole Foods use confusing labels and images of animals on bucolic pastures that, a\u00a0recent Farm Forward survey shows, trick customers into believing products may be better than they truly are. In reality, factory farmed products dominate Whole Foods\u2019 supply chain despite charging customers up to 40 percent more for Animal Welfare Certified\u2122 products.<\/p>\n<p>Antibiotics and other drugs are used widely on factory farms to keep animals alive in cruel and filthy conditions that may otherwise kill them. Farm Forward\u2019s findings should raise serious doubts in the minds of consumers about Whole Foods\u2019 and GAP\u2019s ability to prevent animals from suffering on factory farms and to keep products with drug residues from ending up on store shelves.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFactory farms use antibiotics and other drugs extensively to &#8216;manage&#8217; infectious diseases and parasites in crowded conditions,\u201d said Dr. Jim Keen, a veterinary infectious disease epidemiologist with 30 years of research and field experience. \u201cThe conditions under which\u00a0 animals are raised in factory farms make them easy breeding grounds for antimicrobial resistance and even future pandemics.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Testing<\/h2>\n<p>The testing was conducted by two independent, accredited laboratories using industry standard mass spectrometry, which is capable of identifying compounds at low levels.<\/p>\n<h2>End Factory Farming<\/h2>\n<p>Demanding that retailers and third-party certifications test for drugs in products labeled \u201call natural\u201d and \u201cno antibiotics, ever\u201d won\u2019t eliminate the need for these drugs on factory farms. It\u2019s time for GAP\u2019s Animal Welfare Certified program and Whole Foods to commit to stop selling factory farmed products all together. Until they stop selling factory farmed products, the best way for consumers to avoid unwanted drugs in their food is to avoid animal products whenever possible.\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/take-action\/end-whole-foods-humanewashing\/\">Sign our petition<\/a>\u00a0to tell Whole Foods to take factory farmed products off their shelves.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/section>\n\n\n\t<section class=\"last_updated padding-top-small padding-bottom-large\" style=\"\">\n\t\t<div class=\"container\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"last-updated-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t<h6 class=\"section-title small\">Last Updated<\/h6>\n\t\t\t\t<p class=\"date small\">April 4, 2022<\/p>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1425,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,13,20,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antibiotics","category-animal-product-labeling","category-animal-welfare","category-humanewashing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}