[noscript_1]
Britons have been urged not to drink a popular milk over fears it is contaminated with animal medicines including penicillin.
Health chiefs have announced that Graham’s Family Dairy is recalling batches of its organic semi-skimmed milk, with a best before date of July 31.
The recall notice impacts one pint cartons, one litre cartons, and two litre cartons sold in England.
Graham’s supplies major supermarkets such as Tesco, ASDA, Morrisons, Waitrose and Sainsbury’s with its milk.
Waitrose sells the two litre carton – around three-and-a-half pints – for £2.35, while Tesco charges £1.20 for the one litre carton for £1.20 and ASDA stocks the one pint carton for 98p.
But the Food Standards Agency said ‘veterinary medicines, including antibiotics (penicillin) have been found’ in the affected products.
They warned that this ‘may make it unsafe to consume and may be a possible health risk for anyone with an allergy to antibiotics’.
According to the NHS, around one in 100 Britons have an allergy to penicillin, which can trigger life-threatening anaphylaxis.
Health chiefs have announced that Graham’s Family Dairy is recalling batches of its semi-skimmed milk, with a best before date of July 31
Symptoms of anaphylaxis can come on suddenly and include swelling of the throat and tongue, as well as difficulty breathing, swallowing, and feeling dizzy.
Around 20 to 30 people die from the reaction in the UK every year.
Customers are now being advised not to drink the affected milk and instead return it to the store where it was bought for a full refund.
Graham’s, a family dairy business from Scotland, said the move is a ‘precautionary measure’ and stressed ‘there is a small risk a trace level of antibiotics may be present in the milk’.
They added: ‘We apologise for this issue and would like to reassure our customers no other Grahams Family Dairies products or Use By Dates are affected.’
In separate guidance, Dairy UK, which represents Britain’s dairy industry, says milk contaminated with antibiotics should not be consumed by humans.
They add that farmers use two main types of tests to check for traces of the medicines after a cow has finished antibiotic treatment.
One test, which takes around three hours, is used to detect multiple different antibiotics or substances when the contamination is unknown.
The other is a rapid test that looks for specific groups of antibiotics, such as penicillin, with results typically available in 10 minutes.
However, Dairy UK says ‘test kits vary in their sensitivity to detect different antibiotics’, meaning some medicines are easier to spot than others.
