High Toxic, Drugs Residue in Poultry Meat, Eggs

 By Javed Rana

ISLAMABAD- An official study and veterinary experts have found high concentration of toxic feed and drugs residue in poultry meat and eggs, dangerous to human health but unchecked due to lack of proper regulations and specific law.

Excessive use of strong antibiotiocs, dried fish, and dried animal blood in 18 feed ingredients of poultry birds to ensure rapid growth is posing serious danger to human health, say officials in Poultry Institute. A scientific study carried out by the Drug Control Administration under Federal Health Ministry recently on "rational application of drugs to safeguard human health," revealed that out of 10 sample locations, collected randomly from Islamabad, Lahore, Faisalabad, Karachi, Peshawar, and Quetta seven locations tested positive for drug residues in the poultry meat.

 Similarly poultry eggs samples collected from different cities revealed that eggs from more than 50 percent locations contained drug residues. The report pointed out that excessive use of drugs, such as powerful antibiotics, has made the growth system of poultry birds "more dependent on pharmacologically and toxicologically potent substance." Fattening the birds and getting them to the market as soon as possible in a 'healthy' condition ensures maximum profits for poultry farmers running this Rs 60 billion plus business across the country.

Birds are pumped with drugs to treat and/or safeguard against diseases and then dispatched quickly to the market before the effect of the medicine is washed out of the their system. Officials, who have been monitoring the country's poultry industry over the years, point out that disproportionate amounts of low quality maize and heavy doses of dried blood and fish are mixed in the chicken feed as compared to other components: soybean, wheat, rice, polish corn feed, vitamins, etc. This unbalanced feed composition is responsible for increasing the cases of fungus, salmonella and e-coli amongst the birds consumed in Pakistan.

Fungus causes toxic diseases among poultry birds while Salmonella, that sits in the intestines, leads to typhoid fever. E-coli virus leads to diarrhoea by invading the intestinal lining of the poultry birds, say veterinary experts.

These infections are equally harmful to human health; so is the drug-choked bird that the some poultry owners rush to the market in order not to lose profits.

"There is no Feed Act in Pakistan. So how can we question poultry farmers and feed millers as to what are the ingredients of poultry feed," lamented an official of Poultry Institute over lack of regulations to check the quality of chicken feed.

However, Dr Aslam, an office-bearer of Pakistan's Poultry Association, categorically denied that poultry farmers and feed millers use dried animal blood as a component while preparing feed for poultry birds.

In order to cure disease in the birds a substantial number of poultry farmers amongst Pakistan's 20,000 units resort to heavy medicinal doses, say officials in the Poultry Institute.

Growth-promoter drugs and medicines are administrated for prolonged period, during the bird's time of peak production or as it nears slaughter, giving rise to residue formation in edible tissues, says the report, adding that the drug residue in the medicated animals, including poultry birds, ultimately becomes part of the human body. 

Health Ministry's research also disclosed that the presence of residue in eggs of layer-birds clearly indicated that the poultry farmers did not observe minimum one week drug-withdrawal period and marketed the eggs and meat from the birds undergoing or completing medication.

Drug residues and metabolites (a chemical process to turn variety of substances in the body into new cells and waste products) pass at some level in poultry meat and eggs. Carried in edible products this toxic residue has serious affect on human health but no official monitoring mechanism exists to supervise the drug withdrawal period for therapeutic agents in edible products, according to Health Ministry's report authored by Professor Dr Muhammad Nawaz.

 In the broiler meat, the detectable drugs concentration were found in breast, thigh, heart and liver even 10, 8, 12, and 18 days following the medication. The drugs was also present in detectable concentration in plasma until 7th day in broilers while in layer-birds they could be detected for 8 days following medication, was the shocking revelation of the report.

An official in the Poultry Institute pointed out that the minimum drug withdrawal period of one week in the poultry birds was being ignored largely due to commercial reasons.

 Rational use of drug use in animals requires adequate toxicological evaluation of residues in tissues and organs likely to be ingested by humans. Also mass medication systems of drug delivery - through feedstuffs or drinking water - that are used because of their convenience and commercial benefits should also be checked, the report recommended.

 The report said antibiotics used as feed additives in poultry feed were responsible for the development of resistant bacterial strains in human beings and animals. Therefore the research recommended that the use of "antibiotics as growth promoters" should be stopped while effective bio-security measures as well as monitoring mechanism for the slaughter houses should be put in place.

 The article was originally published on May 19, 2003 in Daily The Nation by the then its Staff Reporter Javed Rana.