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What are Veterinary Drug Residues (VMP)
Veterinary drug residues are a major problem with food contamination usually found to accumulate in the liver or kidney. They can also be found in different tissue positions such as site and route of administration and are a result of human management. Residues, as defined by the European Union (EU) and the Centre for Veterinary Medicine, an agency under the Food and Drug Administration (FDA/CVM) in the USA are “pharmacologically active substances (whether active principles, recipients or degradation products) and their metabolites which remain in foodstuffs obtained from animals to which the VMPs in question has been administered”

Reasons they arise
·       Not following labelled directions or dosage

·       Not adhering to recommended withdrawal times

·       Administering too large volumes at single injection sites

·       Use of drug contaminated equipment

·       Failure to properly clean equipment used to mix or administer drugs

·       Dose measuring

·       Mixing errors

·       Allowing access to spilled chemicals or medicinal feeds

·       Age, pregnancy, illness, allergies

·       Improper use of agricultural chemicals such as pesticides

·       Cross contamination of animal feed stuff

Methods of control
EU countries regulations are based on standardised analytical methods (Directive 96/23/EC) which structures the network of laboratories approved for official residue control, laying down requirements in terms of quality and performance of analytical methods. This is done by a two-step process. Firstly, detection of residues using sensitivity tests with low rates of false negatives and secondly, conformation requiring quantification against the MRL (maximum residue limit) and identification with low rates of false positives. Herd health management; all food animals should be maintained in a clean and healthy environment whenever possible. Drug residues are best avoided by implementing management practice (good nutritional to meet growth, maintenance and lactation needs) and herd health program that keep animals healthy and producing efficiently Use of approved drugs; dairy and beef producers should not use or store un- approved drugs, special mixes, or products within adequate labels as unapproved drugs have no data regarding efficacy, safety, or withholding time. The herd veterinarian should be certain that ELU involves only approving products; Establishment of valid veterinarian-client-patient relationship; the use of prescription drug and the ELU necessitate a veterinary-client patient relationship, which is established hence a veterinarian is closely with the owner in health management of the herd; Proper drug administration and identification of treated animals; before administering or dispensing drugs one has to: know the drugs approved for all classes of cattle on the farm and be familiar with approved dosage, route of administration, and withholding time; Proper maintenance of treatment records and identification of treated animals; institute a workable health record for each animal to record all health related events, including administration of medication. Record the identification of all animals in the permanent health record book; Having proper drug residue testing capabilities really available on and off the farm; this control point addresses the conditions under which residue testing should be considered; the proper selection and interpretation of tests; the inherent limitation and potential misuse of residue testing; Creating awareness of proper drug use, and methods to avoid marketing adulterated products principally educational, total residue avoidance program is based upon the objective of improving the livestock producer’s management and quality control of marketing animals with emphasis on avoidance of drug residues

How do they enter meat products?
Forbidden drugs may be added to feeds for illegal administration to farm animals for promoting increased muscle development or increased water retention and thus obtain an economical benefit. The result is a fraudulent overweight of meat but, what is worse, residues of these substances may remain in meat and may pose a real threat to the consumer either through exposure to the residues, transfer of antibiotic resistance or allergy risk. This has exerted a great concern among the meat consumers.

How are they detected?
Analytical methodology, including criteria for identification and confirmation, for the monitoring of compliance was also given in Decisions 93/256/EEC and 93/257/EEC. More recently, Decision 2002/657/EC, enforced since 1 September 2002, provided rules for the analytical methods to be used in testing of official samples. New substances with anabolic properties are being detected year by year increasing the list of forbidden compounds to be tested

Control in meat
The directive contributed to sensible reduction in the number of growth promoting reported cases. However, laboratories in charge of residues control usually face large number of samples with great varieties of residues to search in short periods of time making it rather difficult