A26-Lancasl#r Farming, Saturday, December 22, 1990
Reaction Muted To
(Continued from Pago A 1)
tor for the Washington-based
National Milk Producers Federa
tion, said she has received very
few phone calls about a recently
released government study of the
issue and almost none from the
general media.
That contrasts sharply with the
response last January, after the
“Wall Street Journal” ran a front
page report that questioned the
safety of the nation’s milk supply
based on the detection of minute
levels of certain drug residues in
retail milk samples.
The government study—“ Food
Safety and Quality: FDA Surveys
Not Adequate to Demonstrate
Safely of Milk Supply” was
issued by the General Accounting
Office, a research organization set
up to serve Congress. Although the
GAO study criticized several
surveys by the Food and Drug
Administration (the federal agency
that oversees the public health
aspects of the dairy industry), it did
not directly question the safety of
the milk supply.
‘The main thrust of the GAO
report is aimed at criticizing FDA,
not at criticizing the industry,” said
John Adams, the federation’s
director of regulatory affairs. It is
concerned largely with such tech
nical matters as the merits of parti
cular residue tests and the level of
FDA tolerances for various
chemicals.
Nevertheless, Adams added, the
industry, including individual far
mers, still needs to do more to pre
vent residues of antibiotics and
other drugs. Toward that end, the
federation continues to pursue a
means of distributing a recently
developed “quality assurance pro
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From all
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A JOYOUS CHRISTMAS AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR
Thank you for your patronage during the past
We look forward to serving you in 1991.
tocol” to dairymen and
veterinarians.
The latest developments can be
regarded as a continuation of the
controversy spawned by the Jour
nal article. The article detailed the
results of two studies, done con
currently but independently, by the
paper and the Center for Science in
the Public Interest, a Washington
based consumer lobby. Each of the
studies turned up evidence in retail
milk samples of very low levels of
contamination by drug residues,
including sulfamethazine, which
has been shown to cause cancer in
laboratory tests involving rats and
mice.
FDA subsequently conducted
its own survey and declared that
the milk supply was safe, although
it too turned up some low-level
residues. The GAO study was
requested by New York congress
man Ted Weiss, whose House sub
committee examined the conflict
ing claims.
In response to the GAO critic
ism, the FDA has announced plans
to launch a continuous nationwide
monitoring program in 1991.
Adams said the program is
designed to be able to track any
problems that might be detected
back to the farmers, veterinarians,
or dairies responsible.
Meanwhile, National Milk is
pressing ahead with plans to
implement its residue avoidance
program, developed in conjunc-
tion with the American Veterinary
Medical Association, despite a
decision by the National Dairy
Promotion and Research Board not
to help fund the program.
The two groups brought
together a panel of experts to deve
lop the 10-point protocol, which
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Latest Milk Safety Development
farmers and veterinarians can fol
low to minimize any possibility
that they might ship milk with drug
residues, Adams said. Among
other things, the protocol calls for
farmers to test milk before resum
ing the marketing of milk from any
treated cow, using tests specific for
each drug.
Federation officials have been
talking with representatives from
other interested parties, including
drug companies and the Coopera
tive Extension Service, in hopes of
forming a group to promote use of
the protocol. “If we are successful
in forming some sort of a consor
tium, we think we’ll be able to gen
erate enough money to deliver the
materials,” Adams said.
Initial plans had called for the
protocol to be explained at a series
Mastitis Mumbo Jumbo Cleared Up
(Continued from Pago A 25)
and contact with contaminated
milk.
Environmental mastitis is
caused by germs in the cows’ sur
roundings. Environmental masti
tis is a nice way to say the origin
of the mastitis was due to manure,
dirty water, or filth.
Chronic infections are long
lasting and often do not respond to
treatment. An example of chronic
mastitis is Staph aureus with
recurring clinical episodes.
Acute mastitis is often found
when cows are exposed to high
numbers of environmental bacter
ia and suddenly become very sick.
Some may actually die. This form
of mastitis is often caused by coli
form type bacteria.
However, the most important
—[lll—
of regional meetings to state regu
lators, Extension leaders, and
industry officials who, in turn,
could explain it at a series of local
meetings. Now, however, the vari
ous parties hope to interest some
one in developing a packet of edu
cational materials that could be
sold at cost directly to interested
farmers and veterinarians, Adams
said.
Farmers arc probably somewhat
confused by the whole affair, inas
much as many of them already
have taken steps to avoid residue
problems. All of the cooperatives
operating in the mid-Atlantic area
penalize farmers found to ship
contaminated milk and reward
those without violations.
Nevertheless, the controversy
persists in the public health arena.
form of mastitis is subclinical.
These are infections that cannot be
detected at cowside but cause 70
percent of the mastitis dollar loss
due primarily to lost milk produc
tion. They are found using somatic
cell counting (SCC) or the CMT
test.
Efforts to control subclinical
mastitis involve knowing each
cow’s SCC, preventing the spread
of contagious germs between
WALNUT BARN &
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fueled at least in part by increas
ingly sophisticated tests able to
detect residues in astronomically
tiny amounts. The sulfonamide
residues found in the Journal
survey, for instance, were esti
mated to range from 5-10 parts per
billion.
Whether or not such low levels
constitute a real health risk, federa
tion officials remain committed to
the need for more action by pro
ducers. Adams said dairy farmers
have a window of opportunity to
adopt a residue prevention prog
ram on a voluntary basis.
“If we don’t,” he said, “then my
concern would be that we will face
more regulations in the future and
more regulations that don’t fit par
ticular operations and create
excess work.”
cows, reducing the number of
environmental germs on the cow
(keeping cows clean), and know
ing when the incidence of new
subclinical infections is rising.
Dry cow therapy and teat dip
ping are the most powerful tools in
the mastitis control arsenal to
combat subclinical and contagious
infections. Clean and dry are the
key to prevention of environmen
tal cases.
Jr^t
year.