Animal medicines must not be prescription only, says group

MAKING all farm animal medicines prescription only would not further improve consumer safety it was claimed yesterday at the annual seminar of the Animal and Plant Health Association (APHA) in Blessington, Co Wicklow.

The seminar was told there would be much greater benefit to consumer safety from uniformly enforcing existing regulations on farm record keeping, training and publication of residue test results.

Frank Hughes, chairman, reiterated APHA’s opposition to the EU proposal that all medicines intended for food producing animals be available only under prescription.