Penicillin Goes Great with Meat

A cow with an excess of 129 times the legal limit for penicillin was yanked from the slaughter line in Minnesota. From the Star Tribune:

J&L Dairy, in Clarissa, Minn., sent a dairy cow to slaughter in March, even though it was drugged with 129 times the amount of penicillin allowed under federal regulations.

Another farm, Evergreen Acres Dairy, LLC, in Paynesville, Minn., was warned by the FDA last month, after one of its cows was found to have more than four times the allowed amount for a certain type of antibiotic. Further inspection found that the farm had misused 10 other drugs.

In letters to both farms, the FDA wrote that “you hold animals under conditions that are so inadequate that medicated animals bearing potentially harmful drug residues are likely to enter the food supply.”

Here’s the letter sent to J&L Dairy. Left out in the above quote is the phrase “In our investigations…” which seems to suggest that the FDA has been targeting these dairies (though it might mean they simply pulled up FDA reports? Would love a dairy farmer’s take on this, if any are reading.)

There’s no indication that consumers were at risk, in this situation, even though it does happen that penicillin makes its way into the milk supply (back in 1985). One wonders how and if FDA measures were taken to prevent penicillin from reaching the milk supply from these dairies.

(Surprised to read that milk cows are used for beef? Roughly 17% of our beef supply comes from “spent” milk cows — and that number is probably much higher right now, considering the dairy crisis. More here from our buddy at Goldilocks Finds Manhattan, a great blog about grass-fed beef.)