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Veterinary drug residues in food - a global view

Vet with cows

 

Veterinary Medicinal Products (VMPs) are essential for both animal welfare and husbandry. But the use of veterinary medicines also brings risks, including the development of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and the potential for toxic drug residues to contaminate food supplies. This article briefly outlines some of the key global safeguards for keeping food safe from veterinary drug residues - such as the Codex Alimentarius, Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs), prohibited substances, residue surveillance plans, and VMP testing. For a much more in-depth discussion of global VMP regulations, download our free whitepaper: “Veterinary medicinal residues in food – global regulations, monitoring, and testing.”

 

Introduction - a world in harmony

 

Around the world, regulations regarding Veterinary Medical Products (VMPs) are broadly in alignment: based on common principles and approaches, but also offering individual nations the flexibility to vary their own residue monitoring programmes. The obvious, and fundamental, similarity is that most regulations are broadly based on a Maximum Residue Limit (MRL) model, while there is also broad agreement on arrangements for the authorisation, distribution and control of VMPs, and on which treatments should be banned in food settings.

 

The Codex Alimentarius Commission

 

The Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex) was established in 1963 to facilitate the fair trade of food, and evidence-based consumer protection, across the globe. A joint agency of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Office (FAO) and the World Health Organisation, it is responsible for producing and maintaining the Codex Alimentarius: a compendium of standards, guidelines and codes of practice relating to food safety. The Codex Committee for Residues of Veterinary Drugs in Food (CCRVDF) meanwhile has a remit to recommend MRLs, sampling schemes, develop codes of practice, and assess the suitability of laboratory test methods for VMP residues in food.

 

MRLs

 

For every VMP, manufacturers must provide evidence of the residue concentration which will have no effect on consumers, and of the “withdrawal period” that must be left between treatment of the animal and slaughter to allow residues to deplete to this level. The dosing level and associated withdrawal period are also spelt out for each species in the authorised conditions of use for each specific formulation, while countries or jurisdictions such as the EU may then use the associated residue concentration as a legally binding MRL.

 

Download our new, free VMP whitepaper for an in-depth look at current VMP regulation,
monitoring and testing around the world.

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Authorisation, distribution, and control of VMPs

 

Although legal frameworks for the authorisation, distribution, and control of VMPs vary between nations, certain common Codex principles apply around the world. These are that VMPs should be specifically authorised for each animal species, and that withdrawal periods should be specified. Producers should also keep records of drugs given to their animals, and food from those animals should be traceable to these records. There is also broad agreement that producer countries should have mechanisms in place for post-authorisation surveillance - both in reporting adverse reactions, and in monitoring residue levels in food.

 

Prohibited substances

 

Instead of setting MRLs, Codex may give a Risk Management Recommendation (RMR) - which in effect advises that the VMP should be prohibited. For example, on the available scientific information, there is no safe level of residues of carbadox or its metabolites in food that represents an acceptable risk to consumers. Currently, there are 83 VMPs on the FAO database that are effectively prohibited - while unlike many countries, the EU prohibits the use of steroids and hormones, plus other growth promoters, as well as antibiotics whose main function is to aid feed conversion.

 

 

LGC Standards – supporting quality and compliance in VMP testing

 

To help ensure that foods are safe from prohibited and excessive VMP residues, and align with rapidly evolving regulations, the global food testing industry must be able to constantly amend its analytical procedures.

 

For five decades, LGC Standards has built a reputation for consistently developing analytical tools to meet your laboratory’s needs – and our reliable reference materials can form the basis of a quality assurance programme that helps to verify the traceability, accuracy, and precision of your measurements.

 

Our veterinary drugs range features 1,000+ highest-quality, ISO 17034-accredited reference materials from Dr Ehrenstorfer, and almost 1,200 pure or solid veterinary and pharmaceutical standards neats. We also provide over 450 single solutions and more than 20 mixtures – including the 59-analyte Smart Solutions™ v59 PharmaVetResiMix Kit.

 

Our portfolio further encompasses almost 250 stable isotope labelled reference materials and research chemicals for VMPs from our Dr Ehrenstorfer and TRC product lines, as well as over 1,500 compounds to support research into the potentially harmful effects of VMPs in food.

 

 

Post authorisation surveillance for VMP residues

 

Surveillance testing is also needed to verify the effectiveness of the controls outlined above. The common principle of all such schemes is that sampling design must be risk-based, although a key difference between Codex sampling plans and EU-prescribed sampling is that EU sample numbers are proportional to production volumes. This means that the EU requires a far larger number of veterinary drug samples to be tested than Codex.

 

Most importing countries also demand that trading partners operate a VMP residue testing programme that is at least equivalent to their own domestic scheme. Therefore, it is increasingly common for the regulatory authority in the importing country – particularly the EU and US - to audit laboratories in the exporting country.

 

Test methods

 

Testing methods for VMPs may be qualitative or quantitative, and designed either to eliminate compliant samples ("screening" methods) or to identify non-compliant samples ("confirmatory" methods). Many regulatory laboratories use a two-stage analytical approach, with all samples going through a screening test (typically at half-MRL, if quantitative) and then using a confirmatory method to re-test any that breach the screening criteria.

 

Different residues, even within the same medicinal class, often have very different chemical properties. Many are unamenable to direct analysis by Gas Chromatography and have no chromophore for UV detection, which means Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry is widely used for both screening and confirmation.

 

 

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