The Council of Agriculture (COA) yesterday promised to step up inspections of poultry farms, holding facilities and slaughterhouses after residue of a banned drug that promotes lean-meat production was detected in a sample of goose meat sold at a market on Thursday.
The meat, which was found to contain the banned drug zilpaterol, was most likely supplied by a poultry holding facility in Changhua County, Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine Deputy Director-General Huang Kuo-ching (黃國青) said.
Geese held at the facility were found to contain residue of the feed additive during an inspection last month, Huang said, adding that a follow-up check on Jan. 4 revealed no traces of the drug.
Since the facility sold about 28,000 geese from Dec. 13 to Jan. 4, the Department of Health would continue its efforts to trace drug-tainted goose meat on the market, he said.
The COA carried out 9,340 -inspections of livestock farms, holding facilities and slaughterhouses last year to check for the banned chemical, Huang said.
The inspections all turned out negative for the drug, he said.
However, of the 483 poultry facilities inspected during the same period, 1 percent failed to pass the tests, he said.
The bureau would therefore increase the number of inspections of poultry facilities to 700 or 800 this year, he said.
In addition to the one case of zilpaterol-tainted goose meat, eight US beef products and one Canadian beef product were found to contain small amounts of ractopamine, another lean-meat--enhancing drug, according to test results released by the health department on Thursday.
Both zilpaterol and ractopamine are banned in Taiwan.
There are more than 20 types of lean-meat-enhancing drugs on the market, the bureau said, but the health department’s current tests can only identify seven of them.
In the wake of its latest discovery of drug-tainted meat on the market, the health department was bombarded with phone calls yesterday from people who were worried they might get sick or even die after eating the meat.
Department officials told them that although the meat does not meet Taiwan’s rigorous standards of zero-drug residue, the amounts detected were not at harmful levels.
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