Starbucks, Don't Serve up Breakfast With a Side of Cancer

Please join us in telling Starbucks to not poison their customers with carcinogenic pork.* Starbucks can do this by prohibiting their pork suppliers from feeding pigs the known cancer-causing drug carbadox. Carbadox is fed to over 50 million pigs in the United States each year. It is fed to promote rapid weight gain and to control the spread of diarrhea caused by separating baby pigs too early from their moms and by raising them in crowded, dirty pens. It is totally unnecessary for maintaining pig health and is banned in many countries around the world including all of Europe, Canada, Australia, Brazil, China, Japan, and Uruguay. When pigs are given the drug, residues of the carcinogen can end up in pork products, increasing consumer risk for getting cancer. Not only that but workers can be exposed to the drug when inhaling dust from medicated feed containing carbadox, and the drug gets into lakes and streams as pig waste is washed off of fields for disposal.

The FDA, like other food safety regulators, has long recognized the enormous risks to consumers that stem from carbadox use in pig production. Despite recognizing the risks and taking formal action to remove the drug from the market in 2016, it’s still being used due to delaying tactics taken by the pork industry and the drug maker.  We do not know how long or even if the FDA will prevail in getting it off the market. In the meantime, consumers continue to be poisoned by carcinogenic pork. 

That’s where Starbucks comes in. As the second largest fast food chain by sales in the United States, Starbucks has a huge reach and the ability to leverage its buying power to protect millions of people from this drug. Starbucks claims to be dedicated to its global impact, transparency, and consumer health. It’s time to prove the validity of those claims. Please write to Starbucks and tell them to not poison their customers with carcinogenic pork.

By eliminating the feeding of carbadox to pigs, they are not only protecting consumers and food workers and the environment from carcinogenic residues, but they are promoting healthier conditions for pigs, where the spread of terrible diseases are mitigated by improved animal welfare and husbandry practices. Animals raised in improved conditions with better housing, later weaning, reduced crowding, and sanitary stalls don’t need to use carbadox. You can easily write to Starbucks by using our online form*.

Food Animal Concerns Trust has repeatedly reached out to Starbucks about carbadox but has not received a response.

*This action is now closed, however, you may visit our action center for a list of active and ongoing campaigns.