Penicillin in foods

Because mass spectrometric techniques can confirm and determine substances, with high sensitivity and selectivity, LC/MS methods have been published for the analysis of residual penicillins in food. However, only a few methods have been reported for the simultaneous analysis of penicillins in animal tissues moreover, these methods are less sensitive than the UV-HPLC methods. It seemed... 

Boison, J.O. Chromatographic methods of analysis of penicillins in food-animal tissues and their significance in regulatory programs for residue reduction and avoidance. J. Chromatogr. 1992, 624, 171-194 (review). 

Electrochemical immunosensors are a powerful tool for the analysis of antibacterials in food and different configurations have been presented during recent years. For example, an amperometric immunosensor was reported by Wu et al. [182], for penicillin quantification in milk, with a linear range from 0.25 to 3 ng/ml and a limit of detection of 0.3 pg/L [182]. Other types of transduction have been also explored, like a label-free impedimetric flow injection immunosensor for the detection of penicillin G. 

The advisability of using certain antibiotics, particularly penicillin and tetracycline, in animal feeds has been questioned because of their use in human medicine. Any use of an antibiotic that is prescribed for humans presents some risks to human health, whether the use is for humans, animals or for other purposes but. the uses also have benefits. Otherwise, they would not persist. Antibiotics are used in animal feeds to increase animal weight, increase efficiency of feed utilization, increase reproductive efficiency and decrease morbidity and mortality. These benefits to animals and animal producers are reflected in decreases in food costs to humans. There are also benefits to human health from use of antibiotics in food animals. By reducing the incidence of animal health problems, use of antibiotics in food animals reduce the transference of animal infections to humans. The contention that the effectiveness of penicillin and tetracycline for use in human medicine is rapidly diminishing as a result of the proliferation of resistant bacteria caused by subtherapeutic use of antibiotics in animal production is not supported by experimental data. Rather, the evidence suggests that a fairly stable level of resistance of the intestinal bacteria in humans has long since been established to penicillin and tetracycline as it has been in animals. 

Some supporters of the proposed FDA ban on the use of subtherapeutic levels of penicillin and tetracyclines in animal feeds hailed the results of the CDC study as a clear link between subtherapeutic antibiotic use in food animal production and antibiotic-resistant diseases in humans. Some opponents, on the... 

Since 1969, the Food and Drug Administration s Center for Veterinary Medicine (formerly the Bureau of Veterinary Medicine) has had cause for concern that the subtherapeutic use of antibiotics in animal feeds may cause bacteria in animals to become resistant to antibiotics. This resistance to antibiotics is said by many knowledgeable scientists to be transferred to bacteria in humans, thus making these antibiotics ineffective in treating human bacterial infections due to compromise of therapy. For this reason, FDA proposed in 1977 to withdraw the use of penicillin in animal feed and restrict the use of the tetracyclines (chlortetracycline and oxytetracycline) to certain uses in animal feed. This talk will focus on FDA s efforts to finalize its review of the issue and present an update on the current status of the 1977 proposals. 

There is an additional protection against residues, because antibiotics in meat tend to be destroyed by cooking.. For example, Broquist and Kohler found that chicken breast muscle containing 12 parts per million of chlortetracycline had 0.14 parts per million after roasting at 230 C for 15 minutes and no detectable amounts after half an hour. The original level of 12 ppm was about 60 times as high as would be produced by 400 ppm in the animal feed, without a withdrawal period W. The UK Swann Committee reported that the only possible effect of residues on consumers arose from penicillin in milk from cows treated for udder infections in which the withdrawal time for the antibiotic had not been observed. Cases of skin rashes were reported from the consumption of such milk by sensitive patients. The Committee commented that "there are no known instances in which harmful effects in human beings have resulted from antibiotic residues in food other than milk" ( ) ... 

Additional studies, such as those conducted by the US Institute of Medicine Report (lOM) in 1988, also attempted to determine the impact of drug usage in food-producing animals on antimicrobial resistance of human pathogens, using penicillin and tetracycline on Salmonella as a model. The authors of this study attempted to describe the extent to which transfer of resistance factors occurred between human and animals and to define whether the risk to human therapy was enough to outweigh the benefits of a cost-effective food supply. The result of the lOM Report was that the information available to answer the question was insufficient. 

Much attention has been given to the use of antibiotics in food-associated applications since the introduction of penicillin in the 1940s. Their use has been limited. The use of antibiotics in animal foodstuffs continues to remain a topic of controversy in many countries in other countries they have been banned, Antibiotics carry into the meat produced and further into human diets, thus possibly reducing their effectiveness in the treatment of human diseases. 

A serious threat to health, also in persons who are not hypersensitive to allergens, is created by antibiotics present in food products. It has been confirmed that penicillin in particular as well as other antibiotics of the group of P-lactams (penicillins,... 

Penicillin Antibiotics in Food Liquid Chromatographic Analysis... 

Penicillin antibiotics are part of a wide variety of antimicrobial agents that are used as veterinary drugs to prevent and treat infectious diseases. Such use may lead to problems with residues in the livestock products. To provide safe products for consumers, the quantification of these residues in foods is required. 

We introduced the LC analysis for residual penicillin antibiotics in food, especially in bovine tissues. To avoid... 

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