Assessment of the levels of anabolic compounds in Kuwait meat industry: Optimization of a multiresidue method and the results of a preliminary survey

Kuwait, like many of the Arabian Gulf countries, imports most of its meat requirements from a variety of countries. At present there are no controls on the residues of anabolic agents in meat products. The present study was carried out to make a preliminary assessment of the status of anabolic agents in Kuwait's meat industry using the most appropriate method. The method proposed by van Ginkle (employing immunoaffinity clean up followed by GC/MS analysis) was optimized for multiresidue analysis of large number of samples in the shortest possible time. Six steroids and three β-agonists compounds were investigated. The recoveries of the anabolic compounds ranged from 77% to 99%. The method was employed to conduct a preliminary survey of Kuwait's meat market. None of the 262 samples analyzed contained detectable levels of anabolic agents.