The US Food and Drug Administration has filed a permanent injunction – known as a consent decree – against Virtue Calves in Galt (south of Sacremento) for violating federal law by selling veal calves that contain illegal amounts of drug residues in their edible tissue.
According to the complaint filed June 22, previous FDA inspections of the farm’s operation found recurring violations of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act that the Virtues failed to correct.
The consent decree prevents the farmer from purchasing or selling any animals from their company for food use unless they take certain specific actions to assure that any animals with illegal drug residues in "edible tissue" do not enter the food supply.
Should the farmer violate the decree, the FDA may require them to stop selling animals for food use entirely as well as take other corrective actions, including payment of fines for each day they fail to comply with the decree and for each animal they sold that was in violation of the decree.