Food Safety and Quality: FDA Strategy Needed to Address Animal Drug Residues in Milk

GAO discussed the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) efforts to address animal drug residues in milk and on the agency's extra-label policy allowing veterinarians to treat dairy cows with higher-than-approved drug dosages. GAO noted that: (1) FDA efforts are ineffective and lack a comprehensive strategy to monitor animal drug residues in milk; (2) FDA has made limited progress in implementing program revisions; (3) states are only testing for 4 of 84 known drug residues; (4) FDA has not approved additional screening tests to test for additional drugs; (5) development of a national database is behind schedule; (6) a new FDA program tests for 12 additional animal drug residues, at an estimated annual cost of $500,000; (7) limited FDA enforcement of the extra-label policy undermines the federal drug approval process and discourages animal drug companies from seeking FDA extra-label approval; (8) FDA lacks effective enforcement and monitoring of veterinarians' extra-label policy use, and cannot detect residues of extra-label drugs used on cows; and (9) FDA cannot control animal drug usage or ensure that illegal or unsafe drugs do not contaminate the food supply.