Labels aren’t backed by testing

The problem, as Price and his co-authors explain, is that there is no real enforcement mechanism to prove whether meat producers are adhering to claims of raising animals without antibiotics.

Producers who want to market their products under these labels do have to submit to the USDA descriptions of the controls they’ll use to ensure that animals are not given antibiotics, along with their protocol for tracing and segregating RWA products and a signed affidavit describing how the animals were raised to support the label claims. Sick animals that require antibiotics to treat an infection are supposed to be segregated, and can no longer be sold under the RWA label.

Source: Testing finds antibiotics in ‘Raised Without Antibiotics’ cattle | CIDRAP