Controversial Study Finds Meat Chemical Levels Reduced

Illegal animal drug and pesticide levels in meat and poultry have reached their lowest counts in years, according to a recently released federal study. However, critics of the report claim that the survey is not statistically significant nor are the government tests broad based enough to make such sweeping safety claims.

The Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service collected more than 380,000 samples of beef, pork, chicken, turkey and other meats from more than 500 slaughter and processing plants as part of its 1991 review and laboratory analyses.

But the most representative samples of the meat that reaches consumers were the 42,056 random selections taken by USDA inspectors under a special monitoring program. Of this group, only 111, or 0.26%, were considered in violation of federal residue standards, down slightly from 1990 levels. Another 1,053, or 2.5%, contained legal levels of animal drugs or pesticides. The remaining 40,891 were free of the 115 drugs or chemicals that USDA monitored last year. The margin of error for the random testing is plus or minus 5% and department officials say the program results are statistically valid.

(There are another 300 compounds to which meat-producing animals and birds may be exposed. The USDA tests for the entire group in the course of a four-year period; chemicals of greatest concern are monitored each year.)

“The trend for the overall violation rate continues downward,” said Richard A. Carnevale, FSIS deputy administrator in Washington. “We are moving closer to our goal of zero illegal residues in meat and poultry. Our data shows that the vast majority of the 177.2 million head of livestock and 6.6 billion birds are healthy and free of illegal residues when they enter federally inspected plants.”

(Drug residue violations are most likely to occur when farmers do not allow adequate time for the drugs to clear the animal’s system prior to slaughter, Carnevale said. Illegal pesticide residues result when farm chemicals are inappropriately applied in close proximity to animals’ habitat or are inadvertently found in the feed.)

Contrasting Carnevale’s optimism, one long-time critic of USDA said the newly released data was nothing more than a “nice public relations gambit.”

“This is part of a campaign to convince the public that the USDA is showing an increased interest in food safety,” said Rod Leonard, executive director of the Community Nutrition Institute in Washington. “They are not changing any of the policies that most concern consumer groups and there has been a failure of FSIS to protect the health and safety of the consumer.”

Leonard, a former USDA official, said that the number of random tests conducted by FSIS isn’t enough to provide a representative sample of the nation’s meat and poultry industries. He also feels that a greater number of the chemicals or drugs to which farm animals are potentially exposed should be monitored in the government tests.

One compound that FSIS monitored for last year continues to present a problem, Carnevale said. Ivermectin, sold by the brand name of Ivomec and used to treat animals for worms, is the “most widely sold animal drug in the United States,” according to USDA. The drug is approved for use on beef cattle, hogs, horses and dogs. Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT), a Chicago-based consumer groups, charged that the drug is widely used to treat diary cattle, for which it is illegal.

While the number of Ivomec violations found by USDA was small, Carnevale said that the “data suggests the withdrawal times for use of this product are not being followed.”

“We have data that indicates that (Ivomec) is being used illegally (in dairy cows),” he said.

Robert A. Brown, FACT president, testified before Congress earlier this year and said that the continuing illegal use of Ivomec means there is no way of determining whether there are harmful levels of the drug in “the milk our children drink.”

Ironically, in the highly complex world of federal food regulations, the illegal use of Ivomec in dairy cows falls under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which regulates milk, and not the USDA. The FDA is under pressure from a veterinarian group to allow dairy cows to be treated with Ivomec, a proposal FACT opposes.