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100 safe-dairy proposals ready for NCIMS meeting

 

 

By MICHELE F. MIHALJEVICH

Indiana Correspondent

 

FORT WAYNE, Ind. — One hundred proposals regarding the safety of Grade A dairy products have been submitted for review in advance of the upcoming National Conference on Interstate Milk Shipments (NCIMS).

Contained in the proposals are testing pilot programs and planning for such things as microbiological hazards, environmental monitoring and drug residue control. Grade A products include fluid milk, cottage cheese, yogurt, sour cream and buttermilk.

The nonprofit NCIMS meets every other year; the 2015 conference is April 24-29 in Portland, Ore. The organization’s mission is public health as it relates to the interstate movement of Grade A milk and pasteurized products – and to make sure those items are safe for human consumption – said Doug Metcalf, director of the dairy division of the Indiana State Board of Animal Health.

The proposals will be studied by various conference committees and councils to determine their merit, he explained. Those approved by conference delegates will be sent to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which may accept some or all the proposals.

The NCIMS executive board and FDA officials will work through any differences of opinion on what should be approved. Representatives of the dairy industry, FDA and state regulatory agencies are a part of NCIMS.

Metcalf updated attendees at the April 7 Indiana Milk Quality Conference on the NCIMS meeting and on the results of an FDA drug residue study. For the survey, testing for 31 drugs was done on raw milk at nearly 2,000 farms. More than 99 percent of the samples were free of drug residues of concern.

"(The results) underscore the safety of the U.S. milk supply," the FDA stated. "These findings provide evidence that the nation’s milk safety system is effective in helping to prevent drug residues of concern in milk, even in those limited instances when medications are needed to maintain the health of dairy cattle."

Though the testing found few areas of concern, the agency is working to have the strongest possible system to ensure milk safety, the FDA added.

"The FDA will work closely with state regulators to consider modifying testing to include collecting samples as necessary from milk tanks on farms when investigating illegal drug residues in tissues involving culled dairy cows," the agency said. It will also consider testing for a greater diversity of drugs and educating dairy producers on ways to avoid drug residues in tissues and milk.

The FDA will release its final rule regarding compliance with the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) in October. The dairy industry, along with the rest of agriculture, must conform to those rules by October 2016.

After its upcoming conference, NCIMS isn’t scheduled to meet again until April 2017, several months after the deadline. The FDA would like the organization to have another conference in 2016 with the goal of getting the industry in compliance. NCIMS would prefer not to have an additional meeting, Metcalf said.

"From the FDA perspective, they’re saying, ‘We think you’re not as far along as we want you to be. We can’t tell you what the rules will be in October, but we don’t think you’re there yet,’" he explained.

NCIMS officials want more information on the science of the agency’s study before committing to any changes, he noted, saying they’re concerned with how quickly kits for additional testing would be available.

4/15/2015