Crackdown on Farmers Injecting Organic Chicken Eggs with Antibiotics

Please sign and share this petition worldwide in an effort ask Congress plus the USDA to immediately amend organic codes and to stop farmers raising organic chickens from injecting their eggs with antibiotics.

Within the poultry industry, it's been discovered that tiny amounts of an antibiotic known as gentamicin have been injected into the chicken eggs, a common antibiotic used in humans for the treatment of bacterial infections. This practice is actually allowed in organic production. The antibiotics are used only for the production of chicks, but not in the eggs we consume, thus the loophole for the “second day of life.”

This is not really organic and there is no data as to how much and how often the antibiotics are used. There was barely any such thing as “organic” chickens prior to 1990. When the practices began, there were no organic hatcheries at all. The organic market has escalated since that time although organic codes forbid the use of antibiotics in any form. Now there is a push to change the original codes so the “second day of life” loophole will be closed.

We have to ask Congress to amend the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 so that the loophole is not allowed. The number one organic chicken producer is Purdue, getting their chickens from hatcheries that do not use antibiotics due to the USDA-regulated label that states “raised without antibiotics.” Organic chickens should be raised naturally without any antibiotics at all; not in the chicken or the egg!

Encourage Congress and the USDA to immediately amend the Organic Foods Production Act. Please sign and share this petition worldwide in an effort to stop farmers raising organic chickens from injecting their eggs with antibiotics. The standards should be the same as the "no antibiotics" label, which actually means no antibiotics—even before the second day of life. Injecting the eggs is poor practice when the chickens and the eggs are supposed to be totally organic!