L'unità di sicurezza alimentare di Orbassano: i compiti e gli obiettivi della struttura presso il Centro Antidoping "A. Bertinaria"

Illicit pharmacological treatments in animal breeding involve an assortment of growth promoters, among which anabolic steroids, corticosteroids, beta-agonists and thyreostats are abused in variable combinations and doses. The increasing sophistication of these illicit treatments, in which synergic pharmacological effects are frequently obtained by mixing low doses of several drugs, makes the residue detection in biological fluids progressively more difficult, especially for immunochemical screening methods, involving relatively high cut-off values. In order to strengthen the fight against any drug abuse in animal fattening, the Regione Piemonte government, with the partnership of the “Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale del Piemonte, Liguria e Valle d’Aosta”, has established a new “Food Safety Unit” within the building of the “Antidoping Regional Center”, which inherited the professional skills and advanced instrumentation acquired for the antidoping activity during the Torino 2006 Olympics Games. Strategic objectives assigned to the “Food Safety Unit” are the following: (i) renovation of the analytical procedures, to be focused on multi-residual detection, namely the ability to detect as many as 30 individual drugs with one analysis only; (ii) studies on the pharmacokinetics and metabolism of illicit drugs and treatments, in collaboration with the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Torino, including the determination of alleged “physiological levels” of hypothetically endogenous steroids (prednisolone, boldenone); (iii) analytical characterization of anonymous substances and mixtures, occasionally seized during police irruptions; (iv) execution of toxicological surveys, aimed to the detection of venoms and other toxic substances, in baits and/or biological tissues of deceased animals.