The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has linked a 2013-2014 outbreak of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDv) that killed more than 7 million piglets to Flexible Intermediate Bulk Containers (FIBCs), the reusable tote bags used to transport and store pig feed. According to an APHIS report, which seeks to explain why PEDv occurred in the United States but not Canada or the European Union, the bags were most likely contaminated in their origin country before distribution to feed mill customers across the Midwest, where they contaminated “feed or ingredients destined for delivery to the farm.” “Several of the farm investigations as well as an early case-control study suggested feed or feed delivery as the source of the outbreak; however, there were no common feed manufacturers, products, or ingredients in the initially infected herds,” states the report, which notes that the PEDv strain found…
Tag Archives animal feeds
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued guidance for industry about the agency’s “current thinking regarding the use of nanomaterials or the application of nanotechnology in food for animals.” According to FDA, the recommendations are intended to assist industry and other stakeholders identify potential safety or regulatory status issues. See Federal Register, August 5, 2015. Issue 574
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has established a docket for comments related to the agency’s implementation of food safety standards mandated under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FMSA) and announced an April 23-24, 2015, public meeting in Washington, D.C., to solicit input about operational work plans. Operational work plan discussions will focus on produce safety, preventive controls for animal feed and food manufacturing facilities, measures to address intentional adulteration, the Foreign Supplier Verification Program, and FDA’s third-party accreditation program. Meeting participants will also have the opportunity to attend various break-out sessions on particular topics. Registration information is available on FDA’s website, and stakeholders may submit written or electronic comments to the docket by May 26. See Federal Register, March 24, 2015. Issue 560
The Center for Food Safety and two other public interest organizations have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seeking to overturn its approval of 11 animal drugs containing ractopamine hydrochloride on the ground that the agency failed to undertake the analysis purportedly required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) before approving them. Ctr. for Food Safety v. Hamburg, No. 14-4932 (N.D. Cal., filed November 6, 2014). The Center previously petitioned FDA to reduce the allowable levels of ractopamine, administered in animal feeds to boost growth and leanness in meat production, and to study its potential effects on human health and animal welfare. Information about the petition appears in Issue 466 of this Update. The complaint sets forth the effects these drugs allegedly have on livestock, like pigs, and on the environment. The plaintiffs claim that the company that makes ractopamine has acknowledged the “risk…
To ease producer burdens under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has revised four proposed rules related to produce safety; preventive controls for human food and animal food; and the foreign supplier verification program. After receiving feedback from consumers and industry stakeholders, the agency has (i) updated water quality testing provisions; (ii) exempted farms with less than $25,000 in sales from produce-safety rules; (iii) addressed the use of spent grains in animal food by clarifying that brewers and distillers subject to the human-food rules do not need to comply with all animal-food rules; and (iv) granted importers more flexibility under the proposed foreign-supplier verification program “to determine appropriate supplier verification measures based on risk and previous experience with their suppliers.” FDA has requested comments on the proposed changes by December 15, 2014. “Ensuring a safe and high-quality food supply is one of the FDA’s…
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and other groups have requested that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reconsider its decision that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is not required to begin proceedings to withdraw approval of certain antibiotics in livestock feed. NRDC Inc. v. FDA, No. 12-2106 (2d Cir., petition filed September 8, 2014). Additional details about the Second Circuit’s split ruling appear in Issue 531 of this Update. According to a news source, the petitioners contend that the panel majority overlooked FDA’s initial findings that the use of antibiotics in animal feed is unsafe and “writes the withdrawal provision out of the Food and Drug Act.” FDA considered the safety of penicillin and tetracyclines in animal feed in 1977, but never conducted adversarial hearings with industry as purportedly required under the law, opting instead to seek the voluntary withdrawal of animal feed with antibiotics from the market. See Law360,…
The American Medical Association (AMA) has adopted a resolution pressing the federal government to prohibit the use of antibiotics in farm feed for the purpose of growth promotion in response to the rapid development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. David Wallinga, a physician on the Keep Antibiotics Working steering committee, said that overuse of antibiotics has driven resistant bacteria to develop more quickly, and “[a]s much as 70 percent of the use in agriculture is unnecessary or overuse.” Replacing a previous policy that discouraged the use of anti-microbials for non-therapeutic use in agriculture, Resolution 513 states that the AMA will (i) “support federal efforts to ban antibiotic use in food-producing animals for growth promotion purposes, including through regulatory and legislative measures”; (ii) “support a strong federal requirement that antibiotic prescriptions for animals be overseen by a veterinarian”; and (iii) “support efforts to expand [Food and Drug Administration] surveillance and data collection of…
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has released its final guidance on the use of nanotechnology in food as well as draft guidance on use of the technology in animal food. Rather than categorically judging nanotech as either safe or harmful, the agency indicated that it will consider specific characteristics of products with nanotech as they are produced. Among FDA’s nonbinding recommendations are encouragement for food manufacturers’ considerations of composition, safety and regulatory status as well as assurance that the guidance does not change the status of products already generally recognized as safe. The agency also recommends that manufacturers assess whether their implementation of nanotech will change their safety and regulatory status by determining what the physiochemical changes of the food product may be and invites consultations with the FDA about those determinations. “Our goal remains to ensure transparent and predictable regulatory pathways, grounded in the best available science,…
The European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA’s) Panel on Additives and Products or Substances used in Animal Feed (FEEDAP Panel) has issued an opinion on Bacillus species used in animal production as microbial feed additives or as the source of other feed additives, mainly enzymes. Noting that the main “concern for humans, and, to a lesser extent livestock, associated with Bacillus is a capacity for toxin production,” the FEEDAP Panel cautions that the capacity for toxin production and the nature of the toxins produced is “unevenly distributed over the genus, occurring frequently in some species and more rarely in others.” According to the panel, the selection of strains belonging to the B. cereus taxonomic group for direct use in animal production is considered inadvisable. For other species, “concerns appear to be associated to the production of surfactin like-lipopeptides, although the relation between the presence of these compounds and/or other toxic factors and the…
The European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA’s) Panel on Additives and Products or Substances Used in Animal Feed (FEEDAP Panel) has proposed reducing the maximum amount of zinc permitted in animal feed “to ensure the health, welfare and productivity of the target species.” According to the FEEDAP Panel, which reviewed the available literature “as well as data received from national authorities of European countries and from stakeholders,” the new maximum levels include: (i) 150 mg of Zinc per kilogram (Zn/kg) complete feed for piglets, sows, rabbits, salmonids, cats, and dogs; (ii) 120 mg Zn/kg complete feed for turkeys for fattening; and (iii) 100 mg Zn/kg complete feed for all other species and categories. In addition, “the use of phytase in feeding piglets, pigs for fattening and sows would allow a further reduction of the newly proposed total maximum contents by 30% (from 150 to 110 mg Zn/kg feed for piglets and…
