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Headline in Boise Weekly:
Got Milk? Got Drugs? Got Both? High Levels of Antibiotics and Other Drugs Found in Cattle Linked to Dairies by George Prentice, April 6, 2011
Excerpts from Above Article:
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"When test results released last year by the United States Department of Agriculture's Food Safety Inspection Service showed extremely high levels of drugs and antibiotics in cattle from dairies across the nation, including in Idaho, the federal agency announced it would launch a series of tests to address a potential problem.
"Yet records of the testing are inaccessible and records of their strategy meeting don't exist.
"The Dairymen's Association did not return repeated calls.
"The presence of drug or antibiotic residues exceeding a safe or tolerable level, set by the FDA, is illegal.
"USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, violations of drug residues occur three times as often in tissues from dairy cows than in beef cows.
"But drugs are as common as cow patties in the nation's dairies.
"In 2010, the FSIS reported blatant violations in the U.S. food chain.
"A survey of dairy cows sent to slaughter for beef discovered illegal amounts of drug residue in the livers and kidneys of cows that otherwise would have been turned into hamburger or T-bones. In other words, hundreds of positive samples of drug residues were found in tissues of animals destined for the nation's meat supply.
"The drugs ranged from the familiar (penicillin) to the obscure (tilmicosin, an anti-microbial used for respiratory disease). FSIS even detected gentamicin. Two federal veterinarians confirmed that gentamicin can remain for up to three years in a cow's organs.
"According to the FSIS, approximately 20,000 samples of tissue from cattle, swine, sheep and goats are tested each year. In 2010, more than 1,100 violations were traced to dairy cows that had been sent to slaughter and 40 of the violations were tracked to Idaho.
"In each instance the FSIS residue violation report traced the source to cattle, the majority being dairy cows, which had been sent to beef auction.
"Some of the violations were off the charts. In July 2010, the FSIS discovered residue of flunixin in a cow traced to the Double A Dairy in Jerome. FSIS said the cow had flunixin 2,000 percent more than the allowed level.
"In another violation, a dairy cow traced back to a beef auction at the Producers Livestock Marketing Association in Jerome had sulfamethazine in its liver at 27,000 percent higher than the legal level.
"The FDA is concerned that the same poor management practices which led to the meat residues may also result in drug residues in milk," wrote the FDA in a January statement.
"Oak Valley Dairy in Burley reported $5 million in gross revenues last year. According to the FSIS survey, the dairy was also the home of two cows that had traces of gentamicin and tilmicosin, two drugs with zero tolerance levels. The Double A Dairy in Jerome is home to approximately 13,000 cows. The FSIS reported samples from four Double A animals were over the acceptable limits for ampicillin (600 percent), flunixin (500 percent) and sulfadimethoxine (2,000 percent).
"Despite repeated requests, neither Marv Patten, ISDA's dairy bureau chief nor ISDA Director Celia Gould agreed be interviewed for this story."
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The above quotes are shocking.
The above referenced article is even more shocking. Shock? Stick your hand in an electric socket. Eating dairy products will be more shocking to your system than the resulting jolt of electricity.
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