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Comparison of international legislation and standards on veterinary drug residues in food of animal origin

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Abstract

Current legislation governing monitoring of drug residues in foodstuff of animal origin is being revised at the European level. This study provides a qualitative comparison of the legislation, public and private standards in the European Union, the United States of America (USA) and the Eurasian Customs Union/Russia. We made a quantitative comparison of Maximum Residue Levels (MRLs) applied in each region for pork kidneys for tetracycline (with a focus on doxycycline), penicillin and chloramphenicol. The Customs Union generally applied lower levels than the other regions, with MRLs for tetracyclines in pig kidneys being 1200 times lower than those applied in the USA. Growing consumer interest and concern about chemicals in their food could be leveraged to support and enhance the implementation of new initiatives to improve veterinary public health. Farmers and veterinarians could help reduce findings of drug residues in meat through the judicious use of preventive actions when using veterinary medicine.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the following persons for input during the project: Derk Oorburg (VION Food); Isabelle Rüfenacht (Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office of Switzerland, Food and nutrition Division); Kai Caspari (Official Cantonal Veterinary Services from Zug); Klaus Depner (FLI); Lucie Collineau (SAFOSO); and Pia Gjertsen Prestmo (Bristol University). We acknowledge the entire SANTERO Consortium for inspiring discussion during the project (https://santero.fp7-risksur.eu/).

Funding

This work was funded through the Animal Health and Welfare ERA-NET consortium (https://www.anihwa.eu/) under the SANTERO project (https://santero.fp7-risksur.eu/). We acknowledge support of the following funders: Danish Agriculture & Food Council, Denmark; the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Netherlands; and the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office (FSVO), Switzerland.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. SAFOSO AG, Waldeggstrasse 1, 3097, Liebefeld, Switzerland

    Anaïs Léger & Katharina D. C. Stärk

  2. Danish Agriculture & Food Council, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Lis Alban

  3. University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Lis Alban

  4. GD Animal Health, Deventer, Netherlands

    Anouk Veldhuis & Gerdien van Schaik

  5. Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands

    Gerdien van Schaik

Authors
  1. Anaïs Léger
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  2. Lis Alban
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  3. Anouk Veldhuis
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  4. Gerdien van Schaik
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  5. Katharina D. C. Stärk
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Correspondence to Anaïs Léger.

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Appendices

Annex A

See Table 8.

Table 8 List of criteria to describe the different studied legislation and standards for comparative purpose
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Annex B

See Table 9.

Table 9 Inventory of documents in the EU legislation concerning veterinary drug residues in foodstuff of animal origin
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Annex C

See Table 10.

Table 10 Inventory of documents in Switzerland, the Customs Union, the USA concerning veterinary drug residues in foodstuff from animal origin
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Annex D

See Table 11.

Table 11 Inventory of national and international standards concerning veterinary drug residues in foodstuff from animal origin
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Léger, A., Alban, L., Veldhuis, A. et al. Comparison of international legislation and standards on veterinary drug residues in food of animal origin. J Public Health Pol 40, 308–341 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41271-019-00169-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41271-019-00169-2

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