About Environmental, Occupational and Food Safety Aspects

• The main advantage of the novel medicated feed is that there is no leaching of the drug from the feed, or only very minor leaching can be observed.  In experiments with methyltestosterone-containing feed only 1.71% of the drug was found in the water after one hour contact time; the water temperature was 15°C.   Therefore the novel medicated feed is an environmentally safe product, much safer than feeds that are surface-coated with the drug.
• Due to its excellent palatability, the medicated feed is very likely to be consumed instantaneously by the animal; therefore no unconsumed medicated feed will contaminate the environment.   This too contributes to the product’s environmental friendliness.
• In case of occasional mechanical abrasion from the surface, not the all drug from a pellet will end up in the environment, because the drug is not accumulated on the surface but distributed within the pellets.  This too makes the novel medicated feed a safer product, than the surface-coated pellets.
• The novel product is occupationally safe on fish farms.  The concentration of the drug on the surface of the pellets is much lower than on the surface of coated feeds.  When pellets are surface-coated, the oily drug layer and the oily sealing layer may become one layer.   This layer contains then all the drug that the pellet carries.  The oily top layer is very likely to leach during handling.
• The novel medicated feed is prepared in a closed system; the system includes units for solvent recovery; the recovered solvent is recycled.   The production is occupationally and environmentally safe.
• Since all the feed pellets contain the same amount of drug, it is not likely that a substantial number of animal are overdosed; thus no food safety concerns arise.