The importance of health protection of the consumer in relation to veterinary drugs

: The responsibility of the Ministry of Welfare, Health and Cultural Affairs (WVC) and especially the task of the Veterinary Public Health Inspectorate (VI), and the research and advice of the National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Hygiene (RIVM) are described with regard to the Netherlands Veterinary Medicinal Products Act, now and in the future. The registration of these medicines is also necessary for the safety of the consumer; this holds both for the problems related to residues in products of animal origin, and for the problems with respect to bacterial resistance to antimicrobial drugs, because of therapeutic prescription of the same type of drugs in human patients. The admittance to the market of a veterinary drug will only take place after an adequate risk-evaluation with respect to human health, followed by risk-management; the latter implies the admittance policy and its control. The authors have the opinion that the internal quality control and quality assurance during the meat production chain has to be conducted by the producers themselves. The monitoring of this surveillance, and hence the external quality assurance, will remain a governmental responsibility to safeguard products of animal origin.