Codex sets standards for ractopamine in beef and pork; Consumers' Foundation urges government to safeguard consumer health
Text / Consumers' Foundation, Chinese Taipei
The Codex Alimentarius Commission moved to a vote yesterday evening (the 5th) and, by 69 votes in favor to 67 against, adopted a standard for the lean-meat additive ractopamine. The established ractopamine residue tolerance levels are 10ppb for both muscle and fat of pigs and cattle, 40ppb for the liver of pigs and cattle, and 90ppb for the kidney of pigs and cattle.
The Consumers' Foundation stated that under the strong leadership, mobilization and pressure of the United States, the margin was ultimately only two votes; although the situation was reversed, it was not an overwhelming victory, which shows that countries remain full of doubts about ractopamine, and there is still great uncertainty regarding health risks.
In particular, for ractopamine residue tolerance levels, the liver is 40ppb and the kidney is 90ppb. This poses a deep risk given the dietary habit of Chinese people, who enjoy eating internal organs as a tonic, and it especially deserves the particular attention of the government and consumers!
During the CODEX meeting, Italian food experts also pointed out that even if the strictest standards were used to set the acceptable daily intake (ADI) and maximum residue limits (MRLs) for ractopamine, safety could not be guaranteed, because the European Food Safety Authority questioned whether ractopamine might affect patients with cardiovascular disease, yet the experiments lacked research on representative population groups.
In fact, the World Health Organization's Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) has also never conducted more rigorous scientific research based on these recommendations from the European Union. When uncertainty is this high, the European Union believes it is simply impossible to establish a safe level for ractopamine.
Therefore, the Consumers' Foundation regrets to state that the United States used its political advantage to force a vote, letting US beef from epidemic areas, containing lean-meat additives and carrying the mad cow disease factor, crash into the whole world, and it appears Taiwan, China will also become meat on the chopping block!
The Consumers' Foundation points out that former US President Kennedy, as early as March 15, 1962, when delivering a message, declared that "protecting consumers is the power of the federal government," and proposed four basic consumer rights -- the right to safety, the right to be informed, the right to choose, and the right to be heard; this is an important indicator of a nation's progress!
However, in this US beef incident, a battle to defend the health of the people, the Consumers' Foundation has since 2005 actively worked with the government in power (through both Democratic Progressive Party and Kuomintang administrations) to fully play the role of gatekeeper for consumer protection, striving to collect domestic and international information related to the health hazards of "mad cow disease" and "lean-meat additives," and immediately providing it to the government as a reference for policymaking!
At the beginning of the year, through the efforts of civil society organizations, Donald M. Broom, chairman of the European Union's Scientific Committee on Animal Welfare and a professor at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, was invited to speak at the Legislative Yuan on March 29 on "ractopamine use," citing a 2009 report by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) that ractopamine causes animals to suffer unnecessary pain during growth, not only infringing on animal welfare but also potentially harming human health.
In fact, the European Union banned the import of all beef from cattle treated with growth hormones in 1988, leading the United States and Canada, with the support of the World Trade Organization, to take retaliatory action, restricting imports of European products ranging from cheese, truffles and chocolate to mustard into the European Union and the United States; finally, in 2009, an agreement was reached: the European Union could continue to maintain its ban on imports of beef from cattle treated with growth hormones, while the United States planned to gradually lift sanctions on European products in exchange for the European Union substantially increasing its tariff-free import quota for beef from cattle not treated with growth hormones.
Therefore, the lesson this 24-year trade war offers to the public is this: "based on the risk of endangering public safety," as long as the government persists firmly enough, united public opinion can serve as the government's backing. In particular, the amount of US beef exported to Taiwan, China is comparable to that of the European Union, so Taiwan, China certainly has bargaining chips to "negotiate" with the United States; the so-called bargaining condition is "the right to import organic US beef that does not contain lean-meat additives"!
It is noteworthy and encouraging that Costco in Taiwan, China, at the beginning of last year (Year 101 of the Republic of China), stopped selling US beef because government regulations prohibited lean-meat additives. Therefore, as a large retailer introducing the American-style operation model, it was willing to comply with national laws and also stop selling US beef with lean-meat additives to protect consumer health. This is commendable and even more worthy of all retailers emulating.
Therefore, although CODEX has already established ractopamine residue tolerance standards, in order to safeguard the health of the people, the Consumers' Foundation calls for:
Government
1. The government has an obligation to protect the safety and health of all consumers and should promptly establish stricter ractopamine residue tolerance standards as a gatekeeping measure!
2. The government should immediately expand testing capacity and assist private organizations in strengthening testing capacity to help the government with gatekeeping.
3. Local authorities should increase the density of meat quality inspections and actively safeguard consumer health.
4. Consumers have the right to know the truth about products. Therefore, for every batch of US beef, consumers must know whether it contains lean-meat additives and their content; at the very least, the source state of the cattle must be labeled.
5. The Consumers' Foundation demands that every batch of imported meat be inspected batch by batch at customs, and that the inspection results and detected levels be published immediately on a website so consumers can look them up; and these inspection results must follow the goods to distributors and retailers and be publicly announced.
6. Consumers have the right to choose better products. Therefore, product labeling must be implemented, including in traditional markets, noodle stalls, beef dumpling (pancake) fillings, schools, the military, fast food restaurants, breakfast shops, restaurants, snack shops, catering services, banquets... and so on; consumers must know the source of every bite of meat they eat.
7. The government must implement the "three controls and five checks" measures, strengthening control on three sides -- "source," "border" and "market" -- and gatekeeping through procedures such as "verifying certificates," "clearly labeling product information," "opening boxes for inspection," "food safety testing" and "real-time information verification." It must no longer betray the people's trust!
Industry
1. In international literature, the risks of US beef still cannot be taken lightly. To protect consumer health and a clean environment, all conscientious operators upstream, midstream and downstream should follow COSTCO's example and stop selling problematic meat products, taking active action to protect consumers' right to health.
2. Encourage the import of "organic beef" to provide consumers with high-quality products.
3. To let consumers shop with peace of mind, we call for implementing origin labeling and building trust and mutual assistance between operators and consumers.
4. Encourage the import and purchase of US beef with safety certification from testing and screening for "lean-meat additives," "E. coli O157" and "prion protein," and, in the spirit of food traceability, fully label it, fulfilling consumers' rights to "know" and "choose."
Consumers
1. Launch a consumer boycott campaign, using consumers' rights to "express" and "act" to express their awareness of defending their own health!
2. Encourage consumers to do their own gatekeeping. Consumers can send a fee of 100 yuan (rapid test strips / per strip), plus a 10-yuan self-addressed return envelope (please fill in your home recipient, address, type of rapid test strips needed... and other information, and affix 10 yuan in small-package postage) to the Consumers' Foundation (for beef: ractopamine rapid test strips; for pork, duck and goose: salbutamol and clenbuterol hydrochloride rapid test strips).
3. Support the Consumers' Foundation in promptly acquiring the precision testing instrument "liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry" to serve as a gatekeeper for consumers. Therefore, consumers must join hands in unity and sponsor the Consumers' Foundation's "instrument fundraising" campaign; what the government will not do, let the Consumers' Foundation do for all consumers!!
Finally, the Consumers' Foundation reiterates that on May 11, Minister of Health Chiu Wen-ta stated at the Legislative Yuan that if a case of poisoning from eating US beef containing safe tolerance levels of ractopamine occurs abroad, imports will be stopped immediately; if a domestic consumer is poisoned from eating US beef containing safe tolerance levels of ractopamine, the state will take full responsibility for care and compensation and will actively seek compensation from the manufacturer on the consumer's behalf.
The Consumers' Foundation states that the basis for claiming compensation for food poisoning requires preserving evidence. Therefore, the lean-meat additive content in the blood of high-risk groups such as cardiovascular patients or pregnant women should be tested within the hospital system to ensure that consumers have a way to claim compensation.
What Dean Chiu said about "the state taking responsibility for care and compensation" means paying compensation from the public budget and then seeking compensation from the operator. Taking melamine as an example, manufacturers still cannot obtain a single cent of compensation from the mainland manufacturers. In other words, this "bad debt" has to be shared by taxpayers, which is unreasonable!
Moreover, after incidents such as melamine and plasticizers occurred, consumers who ate toxic food were often trapped by claims such as "the impact on human health cannot be assessed, there is no specific causal relationship," "consumers cannot prove that eating this company's product caused the effect..." and so on, unable to obtain compensation and utterly exhausted physically and mentally!
US beef with lean-meat additives does not have acute toxicity, so severe acute poisoning should not occur, but if illegal addition occurs, the operator should bear liability for compensation. The Consumers' Foundation points out that in September of Year 100 of the Republic of China, it had already completed drafting the Consumers' Foundation version of the "Consumer Protection Fund Draft," whose main purpose is to establish the legal basis for "establishing a consumer protection fund" and include it in the current Consumer Protection Act, hoping to open a door for consumers' path to compensation in pursuit of fairness and reasonableness.
Therefore, the Consumers' Foundation earnestly requests all legislators concerned with livelihood issues, when revising the ractopamine tolerance levels, to also support the Consumers' Foundation version of the "Consumer Protection Fund Draft," help have it listed as a bill and passed as soon as possible, so as to help unfortunate victims among consumers gain one more measure of protection and give operators one more warning in their business operations.
Advice for consumers:
1. When buying meat, look at origin labeling, and do not eat or buy US beef (which carries the possible threats of mad cow disease and lean-meat additives).
2. Women before and after pregnancy, infants and young children, the elderly, as well as frail consumers and cardiovascular patients, should pay special attention to whether the meat they eat contains lean-meat additives.
3. To guard against lean-meat additives, avoid eating internal organs such as lungs and kidneys. Prion protein exists in parts including the brain, skull, eyes, trigeminal ganglia, spinal cord, vertebral column and dorsal root ganglia, tonsils and the distal ileum, and data even show traces in muscle. Therefore, especially avoid eating ground meat products such as hamburger patties.
4. When entering or leaving restaurants and convenience stores (supermarkets), ask whether US beef is sold and avoid spending there; when necessary, keep receipts as proof for compensation in case of harm.
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