Withholding time changes

Withholding time changes for some penicillin products.

As part of a review being undertaken by MPI around antimicrobial resistance, there has been a recent requirement for all pharmaceutical companies to review the dose rate of their product labels to ensure they align with best practice recommendations. For a number of penicillin-based injectable products, this has resulted in an increase in both the recommended dose rate and also the resulting withholding period listed on their product label, particularly for products with no recent residue testing data.

This process has resulted in some differences in label withholding periods between the different penicillin products. There is a transition period for these changes and if you have a current RVM script from a Franklin Vets Veterinarian, then this remains valid for these products at the current dose and withholding times as listed on your script. This script supercedes the product label, so officially, this means we are authorising an off-label use of this product. However, we are comfortable with the robustness of our scripts and to support clients while we transition to new products where applicable.

We have sourced a number of alternative products with shorter withholding periods, but we believe that it is important that any decisions are made in consultation with your veterinarian, and we will be undertaking reviews over the next few months, either as part of our normal scripting process or as a discussion with clients whose scripts are not due.