its use is standard industry practice. The USDA had originally approved the "raised without antibiotics" label, but withdrew their approval after learning that Tyson used ionophores. Tyson and the USDA compromised on rewording Tyson's slogan as "raised without antibiotics that impact antibiotic resistance in humans", but the USDA later said that Tyson could not use that label either. In June 2008, Tyson agreed to voluntarily remove its "raised without antibiotics" label in future packaging and advertising. In 2015, Tyson Foods announced plans to stop feeding chickens with antibiotics used in human medicine. In 2017, the company announced plans to stop using antibiotics on chickens for Tyson-branded breasts, nuggets, and wings. Animal welfare Tyson Foods has been embroiled in numerous scandals related to animal abuse and cruelty. In response to undercover revelations of animal abuse, Tyson has responded by arguing that the undercover animal rights activists were at fault for the abuse by not actively preventing it. In 2006, Tyson completed a study to determine whether controlled atmosphere killing, which uses gas to render chickens unconscious before slaughter, could be a more humane practice than conventional electrical stunning. According to Bill Lovette, Tyson's senior group vice president of poultry and prepared foods, the study found no difference between the humaneness of the two methods. The company plans to ask scientists at the University of Arkansas to initiate a similar study to test these initial results. The research will be led by the newly created chair in Food Animal Wellbeing at the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences of the University of Arkansas. Tyson has committed $1.5 million to help establish the chair, which will be involved in overseeing research and classes focused on the humane management and treatment of food animals. In 2012, Tyson introduced an auditing program known as FarmCheck to check how animals are treated by the company's suppliers. The program was introduced as a trial on certain hog farms, and was the first major program of its kind to apply penalties to producers for noncompliance. By 2020, FarmCheck had expanded to Tyson's poultry suppliers, and its poultry audits were certified by the Professional Animal Auditor Certification Organization. In 2014, after an NBC News reported on abuse of piglets at a Tyson pig farm in Oklahoma, Tyson announced new animal care guidelines, such as keeping sows in larger cages, installing video cameras in cages, using pain