F.D.A and Dairy Industry Spar Over Testing of Milk

[Guest guest]

Each year, federal inspectors find illegal levels of

antibiotics<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealt\

htopics/antibiotics/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>in

hundreds of older dairy cows bound for the slaughterhouse. Concerned

that

those antibiotics might also be contaminating the milk Americans

drink, the Food

and Drug

Administration<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations\

/f/food_and_drug_administration/index.html?inline=nyt-org>intended

to begin tests this month on the milk from farms that had

repeatedly sold cows tainted by drug residue.

But the testing plan met with fierce protest from the dairy industry, which

said that it could force farmers to needlessly dump millions of gallons of

milk while they waited for test results. Industry officials and state

regulators said the testing program was poorly conceived and could lead to

costly recalls that could be avoided with a better plan for testing.

In response, the F.D.A. postponed the testing, and now the two sides are

sparring over how much danger the antibiotics pose and the best way to

ensure that the drugs do not end up in the milk supply.

“What has been served up, up to this point, by Food and Drug has been

potentially very damaging to innocent dairy farmers,” said J. , a

senior vice president for Dairy Farmers of America, the nation’s largest

dairy cooperative. He said that that the nation’s milk was safe and that

there was little reason to think that the slaughterhouse findings would be

replicated in tests of the milk supply.

But food

safety<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/f/food_safet\

y/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>advocates

said that the F.D.A.’s preliminary findings raised issues about

the possible overuse of antibiotics in livestock, which many fear could

undermine the effectiveness of drugs to combat human illnesses.

“Consumers certainly don’t want to be taking small amounts of drugs every

time they drink milk,” said Caroline DeWaal, food safety director of

the Center for Science in the Public

Interest<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/cen\

ter_for_science_in_the_public_interest/index.html?inline=nyt-org>,

an advocacy group. “They want products that are appropriately managed to

ensure those drug residues aren’t there, and the dairy farmer is the one who

can control that.”

The F.D.A. said that it would confer with the industry before deciding how

to proceed. “The agency remains committed to gathering the information

necessary to address its concern with respect to this important potential

public health issue,” it said in a statement.

The concerns of federal regulators stem from tests done by the Department of

Agriculture on dairy cows sent to be slaughtered at meat plants. For years,

those tests have found a small but persistent number of animals with drug

residues, mostly antibiotics, that violate legal limits.

The tests found 788 dairy cows with residue violations in 2008, the most

recent year for which data was available. That was a tiny fraction of the

2.6 million dairy cows slaughtered that year, but regulators say the

violations are warning signs because the problem persists from year to year

and some of the drugs detected are not approved for use in dairy cows.

The question for the F.D.A. is whether cows that are producing milk also

have improper levels of such drugs in their bodies and whether traces of

those drugs are getting into the milk.

Regulators and veterinarians say that high levels of drugs can persist in an

animal’s system because of misuse of medicines on the farm.

That can include exceeding the prescribed dose or injecting a drug into

muscle instead of a vein. Problems can also occur if farmers do not follow

rules that require them to wait for a specified number of days after

administering medication before sending an animal to slaughter or putting it

into milk production.

“F.D.A. is concerned that the same poor management practices which led to

the meat residues may also result in drug residues in milk,” the agency said

in a document explaining its plan to the industry. In the same document, the

F.D.A. said it believed that the nation’s milk supply was safe.

Today, every truckload of milk is tested for four to six antibiotics that

are commonly used on dairy farms. The list includes drugs like penicillin

and ampicillin, which are also prescribed for people. Each year, only a

small number of truckloads are found to be “hot milk,” containing trace

amounts of antibiotics. In those cases, the milk is destroyed.

But dairy farmers use many more drugs that are not regularly tested for in

milk. Regulators are concerned because some of those other drugs have been

showing up in the slaughterhouse testing.

Federal officials have discussed expanded testing for years. But industry

executives said that it was not until last month that the F.D.A. told them

it was finally going to begin.

The agency said that it planned to test milk from about 900 dairy farms that

had repeatedly been caught sending cows to slaughter with illegal levels of

drugs in their systems.

It said it would test for about two dozen antibiotics beyond the six that

are typically tested for. The testing would also look for a painkiller and

anti-inflammatory drug popular on dairy farms, called flunixin, which often

shows up in the slaughterhouse testing.

The problem, from the industry’s point of view, is the lengthy time it takes

for test results.

The tests currently done for antibiotics in milk take just minutes to

complete. But the new tests could take a week or more to determine if the

drugs were present in the milk.

Milk moves quickly onto store shelves or to factories where it is made into

cheese or other products. The industry worried that, under the F.D.A. plan,

by the time a load of milk was found to be contaminated, it could already be

in consumers’ refrigerators, and that could lead to recalls.

One Northeast cooperative, Agri-Mark, sent a letter to its members last

month instructing them to dump milk if it had been tested by the F.D.A.

“Agri-Mark must ensure that all of our milk sales, cheese, butter and other

products are in no danger of recall,” the letter said.

Other industry executives said that processing plants would refuse to take

any milk from a farm that had been tested until the results showed it was

drug-free, meaning farmers could end up dumping milk for a week or more

while waiting.

The F.D.A. plan was also criticized by state officials that regulate the

dairy industry.

In a sharply worded Dec. 29 letter, the top agriculture officials of 10

Northeastern states, including New York and Pennsylvania, which are both

leading dairy producers, told the F.D.A. that its plan was badly flawed.

Among other problems, the letter said, forcing farmers to dump large

quantities of milk could create environmental problems.

The F.D.A. said it would consider the regulators’ comments as it reviewed

its testing plan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/26/business/26milk.html?_r=1 & nl=todaysheadlines & e\

mc=tha25

--

Ortiz, MS, RD

*The FRUGAL Dietitian* <http://www.thefrugaldietitian.com>

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