McDonald’s, with over 14,000 restaurants in the United States, has pledged to phase out the use of chickens treated with antibiotics by March 2017.

Chipotle, Panera, Wendy’s and Chick-fil-A are already on board, and we hope the rest of the chain restaurants will join the movement. Unless the use of antibiotics in food is restricted to treatment rather than widely used for prevention, the lifesaving drugs will become useless for treating people. And we can’t count on the Food and Drug Administration to help.

Nearly 80 percent of antibiotics sold in the U.S. are given to healthy farm animals. They promote growth and help prevent the spread of diseases in animals packed in close quarters. Research scientists and the American Medical Association have tried for decades to get the FDA to ban the practice. The Centers for Disease Control documented last year that nearly 2 million Americans fell ill from antibiotic-resistant infections. Over 23,000 died.

The European Union banned using antibiotics for growth promotion nearly a decade ago. The science showing the presence of antibiotics in food is making them less and less effective in humans. But as recently as 2011, the FDA wimped out again, timidly asking drugmakers to please voluntarily reduce sales of antibiotics for use in food animals. Oh, that worked: Sales have jumped by nearly 2.9 million pounds, roughly a 10 percent increase.

McDonald’s buys more than 3 percent of all chickens sold in the United States. It’s still not health food, but it’s great to see a corporation show respect for its consumers and force suppliers to do the right thing. That’s more than we can say for the FDA.