Aflatoxicosis in farm animals
1987
Hamilton, P.B. (North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh (USA) | Dept. of Poultry Science)
Aflatoxin has many effects on farm animals, including malabsorption of various nutrients, coagulopathy, decreased tissue integrity, poor growth, poor efficiency of feed conversion, enhanced susceptibility to infection, vaccine failures, drug failures, reproductive problems in males and females and increased sensitivity to temperature extremes. Toxic residues of aflatoxin in animal products present a hazard to public health. To date, regulatory guidelines have been based on legal considerations rather than experimental data. The available estimates are mainly from experiments designed to demonstrate an effect rather than establish a safe level. Con1360sequently, an extremely important aspect of aflatoxin, its ability to interact deleteriously with other factors, has been virtually ignored. Appropriately designed experiments and statistical approaches have revealed that it is not feasible, either practically or theoretically, to determine a true minimum effective dose (MED) for aflatoxin in the laboratory. Epidemiological studies, coupled with laboratory experiments and mathematical corrections, have yielded an estimated MED based on the safety criterion of economic loss in broiler chickens (less than 10 ppb). Additional experiments to establish a theoretical basis for the interactions of aflatoxin are needed before a rational MED can be established. It may be assumed that no level of aflatoxin is free of
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