Regulations Concerning Food Animal Drug Use

Abstract

As a Veterinary Technician, you are involved daily in the practice of administering medications to animals. These administrations may be done according to the label directions, or the treatment regimen may be altered from the label. This altered use is referred to as extralabel, or off-label use. The Animal Medicinal Drug Use Clarification Act (AMDUCA) has moved extralabel drug use in veterinary medicine from an approach of "illegal but tolerated if you do it this way" to "legal if you follow specific guidelines". This paper presents portions of the AMDUCA regulations as published in the Federal Register. These sections have been selected to highlight key areas of the regulations and should not be treated as the full text of the regulations. Directions for obtaining the full text of appropriate documents are included below. In addition, anyone working with dairy animals should be aware of the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance (PMO) regulations and their state regulations regarding drugs on dairies.