Anxious over reports of a potentially harmful leanness-enhancing drug being found in meat products sold locally, catering businesses and consumers have decided to rely on themselves rather than the government to test for the presence of drug residues.
“I decided to set up a self-testing laboratory because I believe in food justice,” said Wu Kuo-chi, owner of a catering firm in Taoyuan that supplies 6,000 meals a day to kitchens and shops.
Months ago when the muscle-growth drug ractopamine was just beginning to stir up controversy, Wu spent NT$800,000 (US$27,000) to set up a small laboratory in his office to safeguard the quality of the food he provides.
Although the government is taking more measures in line with local regulations to prevent the sale of meat containing ractopamine residues, Wu said “loopholes” still exist in the system.
Ractopamine is allowed as a feed additive in 20-plus countries, but is banned in about 160 countries, including Taiwan, China and the EU. Shipments of US beef and pork imported into Taiwan have been found to contain traces of the drug.
“The government cannot ensure [the safety of] everything, so we have to help ourselves,” Wu said.
He added that he intends to expand his food inspections to all raw ingredients, including fish and vegetables.
“Some of my colleagues are doing the same thing,” he said.
The company that helped Wu set up a laboratory said it had received numerous calls in recent weeks from individual consumers asking how they could obtain a ractopamine screening kit.
“The product we’re getting asked about the most works like a pregnancy tester. One drop of blood or urine is all it takes to determine whether the sample is ractopamine-tainted,” Taiwan Advance Bio-Pharm Inc vice president Hsu Wen-liu said.
The device can be used to test the blood or urine of a living animal or blood from raw meat, he said.
Sales of the device, which can detect as little as 2 parts of ractopamine per billion, have soared from 1,000 units per month before the food scare to 20,000 over the past 30 days, Hsu said.
Sonny Ren of SGS, one of two testing companies certified by the government to conduct ractopamine tests, said his company had also benefited from the ractopamine scare.
“Customer inquiries have already shot up 20 to 30 percent,” he said, but would not divulge the exact numbers.
Amid widespread concern over food safety, health officials urged consumers not to panic.
“It’s not that serious,” Food and Drug Administration Director-General Kang Jaw-jou (康照洲) said.
Kang said his agency has stepped up testing at local markets and borders to block illegal meat imports and is working closely with agricultural authorities to check pigs for the presence of ractopamine before they are slaughtered.
“As testing errors might occur, we do not encourage individuals to use a rapid screening kit or send meat samples to uncertified laboratories,” he said.
“It’s like pregnancy testing. After you screen yourself with a tester, you still need a doctor to verify the results,” Kang said.
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