Drug residues in products of animal origin are increasingly rare. This is shown by EFSA monitoring data over the past 10 years. This looked at residues of veterinary drugs and other substances found in animals and animal-derived food.
EFSA's 2020 monitoring data included 620,758 samples reported by member states, Iceland and Norway. The percentage of samples that exceeded the legal maximum levels was 0.19%. This is the lowest figure for the past 11 years (when non-compliance ranged from 0.25% to 0.37%). The figure for 2019 was 0.30%.
Compared to 2017, 2018 and 2019, compliance rates for antithyroid drugs, steroids and resorcyline acid lactones increased in 2020.
Increases in compliance were also noted for anthelmintics, organochlorines, organophosphorus compounds, dyes and "other substances", compared with 2017, 2018 and 2019.
More information on the results can be viewed using a new interactive data visualisation tool.
The data - consisting of about 13 million results - have been made available to improve the transparency, reproducibility and reusability of evidence in risk assessments for food and feed safety.
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