Department of Health under fire for decision on ractopamine

Pig farmers, opposition lawmakers, and other critics accused the Department of Health (DOH) and the Council of Agriculture (COA) of joining forces to “poison” the people.

They said the government should not have bowed to U.S. pressure for the lifting of the ban, which has made headlines recently after tons of American pork imports were rejected for containing the veterinary drug.

Taiwan’s pig farmers said their business is at stake, as the lifting of the ban would allow U.S. pork imports to flood the local market.

They vowed to take to the streets if the government lifts the ban.

Agricultural experts fear that local pig farmers would overuse the drug after the ban is lifted.

The authorities would have to invest a lot more efforts than it current needs to monitor the use of ractopamine, the experts claimed.

KMT Legislator Ko Chun-hsiung alleged that Taiwan was lifting the ban in return for U.S. agreement to let President Chen Shui-bian’s make a transit stop on American soil during his upcoming visit to Central America.

Legislators from the Taiwan Solidarity Union said if the DOH an COA fail to back off from the decision by Aug. 21, they will launch a nationwide boycott on U.S. pork products.

But Thomas Hodges, spokesman for the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), denied that the United States had exerted any pressure on Taiwan for the lifting of the ractopamine ban.

“We would welcome Taiwan’s science-based decision to adopt international standards for meat products,” Hodges said in a statement in response to The China Post’s request for comments on the drug issue.

“We wouldn’t characterize AIT’s advocacy of science-based evaluation of the use of Ractopamine as ‘pressure’,” the spokesman added.

Having vowed that it would “1,000 percent” not lift the ban on ractopamine, the DOH Tuesday made a U-turn.

It said it plans to revise its standards to permit low residue levels of the drug in pigs and cattle.

According to a proposed revision to the standards, the maximum level of ractopamine residue allowed in pigs and cattle would be 10 ppb in muscle and fat tissue, 40 ppb in the liver, and 90 ppb in the kidneys.

The DOH also plans to lift the ban on another kind of veterinary drug, clenbuterol, for use on cattle and horses.

Allowable clenbuterol residue levels on horse and cattle would be: 0.2 ppb in muscle and fat tissues; 0.6 ppb in the liver and kidney; and 0.05 ppb in milk. But the use of clenbuterol on pigs would still be banned.

If the proposed changes meet no objection by Aug. 21, the new standards can be implemented at the end of the month at the earliest, DOH officials said.

Cheng Hui-wen, director of the DOH’s Bureau of Food Safety, said the DOH is planning to adopt the standards set by the Codex Alimenterius Commission, a body established by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization.

The DOH has chosen the standards after reviewing the ractopamine residue criteria of international organizations and 24 countries where the use of ractopamine is permitted, including the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Even after the ban is relaxed, the standards to be adopted by Taiwan would remain the strictest among those countries, Cheng said.

Ractopamine, marketed under the brand name Paylean, is a phenolethanolamine s-adrenoceptor agonist that is used for the improvement of weight gain, carcass leanness and feed efficiency in animals, DOH officials noted.

Studies have shown that the drug can be processed rapidly by animals and humans and that the chances of long-term consumption of residue of the drug in meat having toxicological effects are extremely slim, they said.

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