{"id":5489,"date":"2025-10-15T17:14:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T21:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/?p=5489"},"modified":"2025-10-15T19:12:59","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T23:12:59","slug":"organic-meat-isnt-tested-for-banned-drugs-that-needs-to-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/news\/organic-meat-isnt-tested-for-banned-drugs-that-needs-to-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Organic Meat Isn\u2019t Tested for Banned Drugs. That Needs to Change."},"content":{"rendered":"\t<section class=\"normal_content bg-white padding-top-small padding-bottom-large\" style=\"\">\n\t\t<div class=\"container\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"row center-md\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"col-md-7\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"content-styled\"><p>Consumers trust that the USDA Organic label means meat and dairy products come from animals raised without antibiotics or drugs. But a disturbing gap lies between what the label promises and how the system operates in practice: neither the USDA nor organic certifiers routinely test organic meat or dairy for residues of banned veterinary drugs.<\/p>\n<p>Even though USDA organic standards prohibit the use of antibiotics and other synthetic drugs in livestock production, no institution consistently verifies that these substances don\u2019t end up in the final products. Recent findings demonstrate that this results in residues of banned substances in products sold to supermarkets.<\/p>\n<h1 style=\"margin: 12.0pt 0in 12.0pt 0in;\"><span lang=\"EN\">Why USDA Organic Meat Should Be Tested for Antibiotics and Banned Drugs<\/span><\/h1>\n<p>In 2022, Farm Forward tested Animal Welfare Certified and USDA Certified Organic beef sold at Whole Foods Market. The testing revealed residue of a banned, growth-promoting antibiotic\u2014monesin sodium\u2014 in clear violation of organic law. This discovery prompted a consumer class action lawsuit against Whole Foods, now being adjudicated in federal court.<\/p>\n<p>The problem is not isolated to the organic sector. USDA\u2019s own testing of cattle bearing the label \u201cRaised Without Antibiotics\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/news\/press-release-farm-forward-reveals-major-beef-companies-continue-deceptive-use-of-antibiotic-free-labels\/\">found<\/a> that 20 percent <em>had<\/em> been treated with antibiotics, including many medically important drugs like tetracyclines. These results raise serious questions about the USDA\u2019s label approval process.<\/p>\n<p>What these examples make clear is that without testing, labels like \u201cOrganic\u201d and \u201cRaised Without Antibiotics\u201d cannot be trusted. Relying on paperwork and affidavits from producers is inadequate. Testing is the only way to verify whether animals were raised in accordance with the standards consumers expect.<\/p>\n<p>The National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) has an opportunity to fix this. The NOSB is currently considering a proposal to expand the scope of organic residue testing beyond pesticides to include other prohibited substances. Farm Forward submitted comments to the NOSB encouraging them to require routine testing of organic livestock and animal products for residues of antibiotics, synthetic hormones, and other banned drugs.<\/p>\n<p>To do this effectively, the USDA\u2019s National Organic Program (NOP) must modernize its guidance to certifiers\u2014especially NOP 2613, which outlines how certifiers should respond to residue testing results. Currently, NOP 2613 focuses almost entirely on pesticide contamination in crops and does not provide guidance on drug residues in meat, milk, or eggs. That\u2019s a major oversight that must be corrected.<\/p>\n<p>The USDA Organic label has long been a trusted signal for health-conscious and ethically minded consumers. But that trust depends on the integrity of the system behind the label. Until drug residue testing becomes a standard part of organic certification\u2014especially for animal products\u2014the USDA cannot ensure that organic meat and dairy live up to the values they promise.<\/p>\n<p>Consumers deserve better, and the NOSB and NOP have the tools to deliver it. But will NOSB and NOP require routine drug residue testing, and bring integrity to the USDA Organic label? That remains to be seen.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2735,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,27],"tags":[51,57],"class_list":["post-5489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antibiotics","category-humanewashing","tag-antibiotics","tag-humanewashing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}