Tyson Foods Applauded, Lauded by Activist Groups

In the most rare of occasions, an activist group has praised Tyson Foods Inc. of Springdale and other large poultry companies.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit activist group, said in its Nutrition Action Healthletter that Tyson Foods, Foster Farms and Perdue Farms Inc. should be praised for not using antibiotics in the raising of its chickens. Those three companies produce one-third of all chickens consumed in the United States.

CSPI said it is seeking to end all inappropriate uses of antibiotics in agriculture.

“If huge poultry producers like Tyson, Foster and Perdue can eliminate the use of medially important antibiotics in healthy chickens, then so can other producers,” said Tamar Barlam, an infectious disease physician at CSPI.

But Tyson recently came under fire from a Texas-based nonprofit group for what it called “the inhumane conditions of the meat and poultry slaughterhouse industry in Texas.”

The group, Home Justice Watch, said it would launch a three-week PR blitz against both Tyson Foods and Pilgrim’s Pride. Gary Mickelson, a spokesman for Tyson subsidiary IBP Inc., said he was not familiar with the group.

“We have invested more than $100 million since the mid-1990s in capital expenditures and increased operating costs specifically to enhance the food safety and quality efforts of our fresh-meat plants,” Mickelson said.