Antibiotics Use in Food-Producing Animals and Possible Residual Risk

Antibiotics have been widely used for treating infectious diseases and for promoting food-producing animals growth and yields too. P-lactam, tetracyclines, chloramphenicol, the macrolides, spectinomycin, lincosamides, sulfonamide, nitrofurans, nitroimidazole, trimethoprim, polymyxine, quinolones and macrocyclics groups are the most commonly used drugs for these purposes. However, their improper and illegal use may produce residues in meat, milk, eggs, honey and the other edible tissues of animals. The presence of antibiotic residues induces allergic reactions in humans and give rise to an increase in the antibiotic resistance of pathogenic bacteria that may result in hazardous health problems. In addition, these residues may also result in worsening in the quality of fermented foods. Due to all these hazardous and severe problems, detection of drug residues in food matrices is an important issue for consumers. Various sophisticated and quantitative analytical methods are currently used to determine antibiotic residues in different food matrices. ELISA, Charm II, GC, HPLC and LC-MS/MS are among these methods. To avoid using antibiotics unconsciously and monitoring possible antibiotic residues frequently in food by the legal authority is also necessary to ensure efficient food safety.