Seafood safety research

Tor-Eddie Fossbakk The office is the result of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued final regulations on Designation of New Animal Drugs for Minor Uses or Minor Species. The regulation is in response to the Minor Use and Minor Species Animal Health Act of 2004. The MUMS act established new regulatory procedures that provide incentives to make more drugs legally available to veterinarians and animal owners for the treatment of minor animal species and for uncommon diseases in major animal species. The final rule on designation will take effect Oct. 9, 2007. According to an article in Javma News on the American Veterinary Medical Association’s website, approximately 75 veterinarians are on staff with the CVM, most of them working from the Rockville, Md., area northwest of Washington, D.C. Several veterinarians are on staff at the CVM research office in Laurel, Md., midway between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. The Laurel facilities are geared toward food animals, with housing for cattle, swine, chickens, turkeys, sheep, goats, and various aquatic species. Highly functional, the site includes a surgical suite, necropsy facility, operating feed mill, and milking barn. Research on a variety of fish is conducted at the aquaculture facility. One current project is related to the massive pet food recall earlier this year. "One of the (fish studies) that we are conducting in response to the pet food outbreak is creating what we call incurred residues," Dr. Stephen F. Sundlof, CVM Director, said in the Javma News article, "that is, feeding melamine, cyanuric acid, and other components to food-producing animals, including fish, to see how and where that product accumulates and how rapidly it is eliminated." This research is important because during the pet food contamination, some of the recalled product was fed to food-producing animals. Dr. Sundlof said questions were asked by the Department of Agriculture and others about the safety of animals entering the food supply. "A lot of our efforts in the future are going to be directed at making sure the pet food industry as well as the human food industry is sourcing its materials from reputable vendors or suppliers that can vouch for, and stand behind, the safety of their products," he said. Caption: At the CVM aquaculture facilities in Laurel, Md., researchers are using tilapia to generate tissues containing incurred residues of drugs that might be used in aquaculture for methods development and validation.