WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration has announced that it will delay its expanded antibiotics testing program for dairy products that had been scheduled to begin this month, the Western United Dairymen board of directors said in a press release.
After finding unacceptable levels of antibiotics residue in dairy cows sent to slaughter, the FDA worried that these residues could also be present in milk. The agency planned to expand milk antibiotics testing for "repeat violator" farms, those farms with slaughterhouse animals that had continually contained antibiotic residue.
Dairy producers are concerned that the new testing program, which would check for drugs that the FDA has seen in slaughterhouse tests, could take at least a week to process, severely delaying when milk would appear on shelves and increasing potential for recalls, the New York Times reported.
"Let's determine first how big the problem is with antibiotic residues and then how that might translate into showing up in milk," California Department of Food and Agriculture Veterinarian Annette Whiteford told the Western United Dairymen board.
The agency plans to gather comments from the dairy industry and regulators while reviewing its testing plans.
