Lean meat powder makes people uneasy, what exactly is the reason?
As people across the country debated whether Taiwan, China should allow a permitted residue level to be set for the leanness-enhancing drug "ractopamine," raising concerns about health risks, Chen Bao-ji, chairman of the Council of Agriculture, chaired the first meeting of the Cabinet-level inter-ministerial technical advisory group on the US beef issue on February 10. Surrounded by media, the participants all hurried into the meeting room with tense expressions. The meeting room doors were shut tight and the proceedings were not open to media observers, leaving this issue, which has drawn intense public attention, shrouded in mystery, with no way to monitor how the government is safeguarding people's health - and running counter to the spirit of open government information.
The pro side on the leanness-enhancing drug "ractopamine"
(1) Officials: ractopamine differs from other leanness-enhancing drugs
After the advisory group meeting, Chen Bao-ji, the newly appointed chairman of the Council of Agriculture, and Hsu Tien-lai, director-general of the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine, held a press conference on behalf of the group to read out the conclusions of the first meeting. In terms the general public can more easily understand, the experts' conclusions were:
1. There are more than 40 kinds of leanness-enhancing drugs. The one currently under discussion, "ractopamine," differs from other leanness-enhancing drugs that are more toxic and hard to metabolize, such as clenbuterol and salbutamol, because ractopamine is not a drug but a "feed additive," and cannot be mentioned in the same breath as other highly toxic leanness-enhancing drugs.
2. Over the past 10-plus years, ractopamine used as a feed additive has not been reported to cause livestock poisoning, nor have there been reports of consumers suffering poisoning from eating the meat. In other words, the health risk is very low.
3. As for earlier reports that the University of Iowa in the United States had studied greyhounds that developed myocardial necrosis after being fed ractopamine, the meeting held that the trial was only a study of drug abuse in racing dogs, and the dose used in the experiment was hundreds of times higher than normal use in ordinary livestock farming, so it cannot be used as a reference.
Related articles:
Government discusses leanness-enhancing drugs, mistakenly lumping humans and pigs together! by NewsMarket reporter Wang Wen-hao
In conducting a risk assessment on leanness-enhancing drugs, the focus should be on whether "long-term human intake of meat containing ractopamine residues produces 'adverse reactions'" - only then can it truly reflect people's everyday dietary habits. So far, no scientists in Taiwan, China or abroad have been found to have studied it from this angle, and the European Union has likewise questioned the relevant experimental data and research reports as insufficient; with the risk unclear, it does not accept the ractopamine residue tolerance level set by JECFA. In recent interviews, Premier Chen Chun and Council of Agriculture officials judged whether to allow leanness-enhancing drugs solely by "high or low toxicity," which is a case of mismatching Zhang Fei against Yue Fei - lumping humans and pigs together!
Reference materials:
"Understanding Ractopamine" section of the John Tung Foundation
European Union report on the safety assessment of ractopamine
Canadian Food Inspection Agency introduction to ractopamine
Martha Rosenberg: Why Has the FDA Allowed a Drug Marked ‘Not Safe for Use in Humans’ to Be Fed to Livestock Right Before Slaughter?
Helena Bottemiller: Dispute Over Drug in Feed Limiting US Meat Exports