CFS Petitions USDA on Drug Residues

The Center for Food Safety (CFS) has filed a petition urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to provide transparency on the levels of drug residue in meat, poultry and egg products found as part of the agency’s National Residue Program (NRP). The advocacy group specifically requests that all approved animal drugs be incorporated in the NRP; that the NRP use “the best available methods that provide for the lowest limits of detection and quantitation”; that USDA establish “clear definitions and parameters for minimum levels of applicability”; and that the agency “improve the NRP reporting mechanisms to provide publicly-available information on all samples with positive residues regardless of whether the levels detected exceed minimum levels of applicability or [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] tolerances.”