Tyson Foods announced this week that it had drastically reduced the use of Baytril, a controversial antibiotic approved for use in cattle and poultry. According to a spokesperson for the chicken producer, the company administered the drug to only two-tenths of a percent of the 2.1 billion broiler chickens it produced last year. Baytril may be responsible for increasing human resistance to fluoroquinolones, one of the most important and popular classes of antibiotics used to treat many types of infections in humans.

Since Baytril's approval for antibiotic treatment of infections in poultry in the United States, the U.S. National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System, a national surveillance program, has reported an increase in human resistance to fluoroquinolones not seen prior to Baytril's approval for use in animals. Researchers speculate that human consumption of poultry products treated with the antibiotic causes such resistance.

Tyson reportedly may stop using the antibiotic altogether, a move that will likely win the company praise from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is seeking to ban the drug in poultry.