In 2007, Congress required the Food and Drug Administration to maintain an online database of drugs administered to animals, and get it online by June 2009. The Electronic Animal Drug Product Listing Directory does just that; this previously published data set (it’s available on the FDA’s site here) is one of the high value data sets released by the Department of Health and Human Services.

It’s available in an Excel format; a lot of the more interesting information is not in the database; the last field contains links to detailed descriptions of the various drugs given to animals (here’s one). The linked files contain information like this:

Do not allow horses or other equines access to feeds containing monensin. Ingestion of monensin by horses has been fatal. Monensin medicated cattle and goat feeds are safe for use in cattle and goats only. Consumption by unapproved species may result in toxic reactions. Feeding undiluted or mixing errors resulting in high concentrations of monensin has been fatal to cattle and could be fatal to goats. Must be thoroughly mixed in feeds before use. Do not exceed the levels of monensin recommended in the feeding directions as reduced average daily gains may result. Do not feed to lactating goats. If feed refusals containing monensin are fed to other groups of cattle, the concentration of monensin in the refusals and amount of refusals fed should be taken into consideration to prevent monensin overdosing. A withdrawal time has not been established for pre-ruminating calves. Do not use in calves to be processed for veal.

The data itself includes the name of the product, its manufacturer, the product type, whether it’s been approved by the FDA.

Could be of interest to health, science and agriculture researchers and reporters.