Use of the animal feed additive ractopamine only benefits meat producers and has negative effects on humans, a British professor who sits on a European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) panel said yesterday.
“Ractopamine usage benefits producers, but not consumers. It is bad for animal welfare and has some bad effects on humans,” Donald Broom, a professor at the University of Cambridge’s department of veterinary medicine, concluded in his 30-minute brief at a forum in Taipei.
The forum, co-organized by the legislative caucuses of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the Taiwan Solidarity Union and the People First Party, was convened to discuss why the EU bans the additive.
The forum was held on the same day that the legislature discussed amending the Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生管理法), with more than a dozen proposals to ban ractopamine and other beta-agonists.
Broom, who sits on the EFSA’s Panel on Animal Health and Animal Welfare, said people in Europe began to pay attention to animal welfare, including how animals are kept, slaughtered and what they are fed, in the late 1980s and the EU subsequently promulgated several directives on the subject in the 1990s and has continued to re-examine the issues since then.
Europe took a different approach toward animal welfare and food safety from the US, he said. It was not up to food producers to unilaterally decide how the product was produced — consumers were also influential and vocal.
“In Europe, consumers are controlling what happens ... and companies are more aware of the power of consumers ... while in the US, producers still dominate how the product is produced,” he said.
Citing EU research data, Broom said that beta-agonists cause meat to have a higher water content, which effectively penalizes consumers, who for pay more per unit of weight.
Research results also showed that ractopamine use increases human anxiety, he said, adding that animals treated with the drug are more active, more difficult to handle and find it harder to deal with adverse situations.
That is why ractopamine is banned in 160 countries, including EU member states, and clenbuterol, another beta-agonist which is much more persistent in animal carcases, is banned in almost every country, he said.
The EFSA does not accept the maximum daily intake level of 0.1 micrograms per kilogram proposed by the UN’s Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives and insists that the calculations should take account of discomfort caused to humans, although the EFSA has yet to determine a safe intake level for humans or how to quantify human discomfort, Broom said.
DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said his party calls for Taiwan to adopt measures and standards similar to those of Europe to keep out meat products containing ractopamine residues.
HOT-SPRING RETREAT: A hotel in Japan incurred a loss of about US$1,846 after a Taiwanese man failed to show up for his reservation due to a misunderstood message A Taiwanese man who failed to show up for a hotel reservation in Japan has apologized and offered compensation, the hotel said yesterday. The man, surnamed Lee (李), reserved a room at the Yufuin Tsubaki hot-spring hotel in Oita for the Lunar New Year holiday, but failed to show up on Friday. Lee yesterday called the hotel to apologize and offered to compensate the losses caused by his failure to show up, a hotel employee surnamed Yashiro said. Lee’s wife also called on Sunday to apologize, she said. Lee had booked a two-night stay with upscale seafood and beef meals, the hotel said. His
Two Taiwanese Americans were among those killed in a mass shooting at a dance studio in Monterey Park, California, on Saturday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Monday. The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles (TECO LA) said it contacted local authorities, who confirmed that two of the 11 killed in the shooting were Taiwanese Americans. “TECO LA conveys our heartfelt condolences to the victims and their families, and sends our prayers to the injured for a speedy recovery,” it said in a statement. The office said it is assisting the relatives of one of the victims to travel from
A senior US senator on Monday questioned the willingness of some US allies to help defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. Although Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) expects the US and Japan to respond in a war in the Taiwan Strait, he was “a little less confident what our other allies would do,” US Senator John Cornyn said. Australia and New Zealand have voiced support for Taiwan, but it “is a far cry from committing troops to repel an invasion,” Cornyn said during a discussion on China, Russia and the state of US military readiness at a forum hosted
Whisky connoisseurs are a rapidly growing demographic in Taiwan, driving prices ever higher as collectors vie for the most coveted editions. Although not a new pastime, whisky collection has been picking up steam in recent years. According to the Scotch Whisky Association, Taiwan was the third-largest buyer of Scotch whisky in 2021 in monetary terms. One collector, surnamed Fu (傅), said there are many types of whisky that are ripe for collecting. One that has skyrocketed in price in recent years is the Macallan 12-year-old Gran Reserva, which bears a striking purple label, said Fu, who has more than 10 years of experience as
RSS