Chloramphenicol is a broad-spectrum antibiotic once widely used to treat bacterial infections in livestock and bees. Its use is now banned in food-producing animals in the EU, US and many other markets, after research linked residues to serious health risks in humans, including aplastic anaemia. Because it’s so potent, even trace-level contamination is a concern; regulators enforce a zero-tolerance policy, with minimum required performance limits (MRPLs) as low as 0.3 µg/kg.
Honey is particularly exposed: chloramphenicol has historically been used to treat foulbrood disease in bee colonies, and residues can persist in the final product. This puts honey producers and exporters under scrutiny from monitoring programmes worldwide.