ANALYTICAL STRATEGIES FOR THE SCREENING OF VETERINARY DRUGS AND THEIRRESIDUES IN EDIBLE PRODUCTS

The development of analytical strategies for the regulatory control of drug residues in food-producing animals is discussed. Analytical meth ods for the determination of veterinary drugs in edible products are b ased on microbiological, immunochemical and physicochemical principles . Because of complexity of biological matrices such as egg, milk and m eat, well designed, and often sophisticated, off-line or on-line sampl e treatment procedures are essential, especially when utilising physic ochemical multi-residue screening procedures. Since large series of sa mples have often to be analysed, automation is increasingly becoming i mportant. Confirmation of the identity of drug residues and validation of the analytical results implies the use of adequate analytical meth ods. In its turn, this requires well established criteria for those me thods and/or equivalent reference methods.