EU Opposes Ractopamine, Italian Food Expert States Position Clearly

By Central News Agency correspondent Cheng Chieh-yi, special dispatch from Rome, the 4th

The Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) is meeting in Rome. The long-simmering ractopamine issue in Taiwan is also on the agenda. An Italian food safety expert gave an exclusive interview to a Central News Agency correspondent, explaining the European Union's and Italy's position and reasons for opposing ractopamine.

According to the agenda published by the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC), ractopamine, commonly known as leanness-enhancing drug, will be discussed on the 4th and 5th.

Italian agri-food products enjoy a worldwide reputation, not only for being delicious but also as a guarantee of high quality. The Italian farmers' association Coldiretti plays a key role, maintaining close cooperation with the European Union to ensure the quality of agricultural and livestock food products.

Rolando Manfredini, head of the food safety department at Coldiretti, was interviewed by a Central News Agency correspondent, explaining the European Union's and Italy's position and reasons for opposing ractopamine.

Manfredini said that even though ractopamine, compared with other beta-agonists, has a lower residual effect in the body, the European Union and China and other countries still oppose the use of ractopamine to increase meat production.

Manfredini said the European Union evaluates ractopamine from three aspects: food safety, animal welfare, and the EU's agricultural model and social needs.

He pointed out that the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) already stated in 2009 that because there are still too many uncertainties, even if the strictest standards are used to set the acceptable daily intake (ADI) and maximum residue limits (MRLs) for ractopamine, safety cannot be guaranteed.

The Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), composed of experts from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), has repeatedly issued risk assessment reports on leanness-enhancing drugs.

However, Manfredini said, the European Food Safety Authority has pointed out that the evidence in JECFA's experimental reports is weak and the research approach is full of problems. The human trial sample was too small, with only 6 subjects, and it did not adopt the "double-blind trial" required for drug testing.

Because in a double-blind trial, neither the test subjects nor the researchers know which subjects belong to the control group and which belong to the experimental group; only after all data have been collected and analyzed do the researchers learn which group the test subjects belonged to.

In addition, the European Food Safety Authority questioned whether ractopamine may affect patients with cardiovascular disease, and recommended that JECFA must conduct research on the groups most likely to be affected by ractopamine but lacking representative samples in the experiments.

However, JECFA did not conduct more rigorous scientific research based on these recommendations from the European Union to rule out the possible risks caused by ractopamine. When uncertainty is so high, the European Union believes it is simply impossible to establish a safe level for ractopamine.

Manfredini stressed that one should not overlook that these experimental data were provided by Elanco, the U.S. company responsible for manufacturing ractopamine, which involves a conflict of interest.
Manfredini pointed out that Elanco is a huge animal feed additive company. It previously launched Stilbosol, a synthetic hormone, but it has now been withdrawn from the market because it sparked controversy. It also produces recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST).

Manfredini said that on these issues, the positions of the United States and the European Union are poles apart. However, it is worth noting that the United States has also previously expressed doubts about ractopamine.
In 2002, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning letter to Elanco, accusing Elanco of providing incomplete ractopamine safety assessment data and drug efficacy reports.
The FDA required Elanco to add a note to the product label stating that patients with cardiovascular disease must be more alert when using the product, and must wear gloves, masks and protective clothing to avoid exposure to an environment containing ractopamine.

In addition, Manfredini pointed out that since the 1990s, the European Union has attached great importance to animal welfare. For example, the European Union recently passed a law prohibiting the long-distance transport of animals for more than 8 hours.
After being fed the drug, many pigs develop metabolic problems and become aggressive and emotionally tense. The European Union maintains that when animals are not sick, they should not be fed drugs.
Manfredini said that some drugs similar to ractopamine can increase production in the short term, so farmers find them very attractive. But in the medium and long term, European consumers generally question this kind of agricultural and livestock model with an overly long production chain, high industrialization and excessive dependence on large companies.

One reason meat from animals given ractopamine increases in weight is actually that its water content increases, and this also harms consumers' rights.

Manfredini said that these technologies related to animal feed and drugs are usually put into use before their safety has been properly confirmed. And some side effects usually only emerge after more than 10 years. The more humans rely on these technologies and the larger the scale of production, the more, when problems erupt, both the public and farmers will suffer severe damage that is difficult to repair.

Manfredini concluded that, at the request of consumers and the general public, the European Union's agricultural policy takes into account food safety, animal welfare and production quality at the same time, so ractopamine is incompatible with the European Union's agricultural and livestock development model.

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