Effective management tools for participants at Codex Committee on Residues of Veterinary Drugs meetings.

The Codex Committee on Residues of Veterinary Drugs in Food (CCRVDF) fulfils a number of functions revolving around standard setting. The core activities of the CCRVDF include agreeing priorities for assessing veterinary drug residues, recommending maximum residue limits for veterinary drugs in foods of animal origin, considering methods of sampling and analyses, and developing codes of practice. Draft standards are developed and progress through an agreed series of steps common to all Codex Alimentarius Commission Committees.

Can the unauthorised use of ceftiofur be detected in poultry?

Ceftiofur is a third-generation cephalosporin antibiotic used to treat cattle and swine for bacterial infection of the respiratory tract. It is not authorised for use in poultry within the European Union. Due to the complexity of the chemistry and metabolism of ceftiofur, maximum residue limits (MRLs) are based on desfuroylceftiofur (DFC) equivalents after chemical conversion of all compounds that have an intact ß-lactam ring.

Investigation of the fate of trifluralin in shrimp.

Juvenile Pacific white shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) were exposed to trifluralin at 0.1 and 0.01 mg L(-1) for 72 h under controlled conditions.

Investigation into the experimental protocols required to determine maximum residue limits (MRLs) in honey.

There is current debate within the EU, and internationally, on how withdrawal periods and maximum residue limits (MRLs) may be set for honey production. Whilst comprehensive EU guidelines exist for calculating the withdrawal times of veterinary medicines in most food-producing species, the analytical variables to be studied for bees/honey are not well defined. The objective of this study was therefore to investigate and understand the factors, for example sampling variability, that is important in the development of a harmonized protocol that can be used to generate the robust scientific data necessary to assist risk assessors in proposing MRLs for honey.

Combining ISO/IEC 17025:2005 and European Commission Decision 2002/657 audit requirements: a practical way forward.

Laboratories involved in the analyses of veterinary drug residues are under increasing pressure to demonstrate that they produce meaningful and reliable data. Quality assurance and quality control systems are implemented in laboratories to provide evidence of this and these are subject to external assessment to ensure that they are effective. Audits to ISO/IEC 17025:2005, an internationally accepted standard, and subsequent accreditation provide laboratories and their customers with a degree of assurance that the laboratories are operating in control and the data they report can be relied on.