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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration released a new Compliance Policy Guide (CPG) for its field staff on actions they intend to take when finding Salmonella contamination in food for animals. Under this new CPG, FDA targets its resources more effectively to protect the health of both animals and humans.
Under the CPG, any pet food or pet food ingredient contaminated with Salmonella is considered potentially harmful to health if it isn’t intended to undergo a subsequent treatment to kill bacteria. Pet foods include dog and cat foods, aquarium fish foods, treats, chews, nutritional supplements, and other pet products.
For livestock and horse feeds, the CPG outlines a risk-based enforcement policy for animal feed that is contaminated with Salmonella, focusing on the strains that are capable of causing disease in the animal for which the food is intended. The CPG provides examples of Salmonella strains that have been reported to cause disease in a specific animal species (for example, swine feed contaminated with Salmonella Choleraesuis.)
FDA maintains a zero-tolerance policy for Salmonella in pet food because it can pose risks to human health when people who are “at-risk” (children, the elderly, and individuals with compromised immune systems) come into direct contact with contaminated pet food.
Tuesday July 16, 2013/ FDA/ United States.
http://www.fda.gov/
