The Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine yesterday reaffirmed its stance on banning pork containing ractopamine as well as its vaccination program against foot-and-mouth disease following calls for the deregulation of pork imports containing the leanness enhancing agent and criticism of the vaccination program by academics.
National Taiwan University veterinary expert Lai Shiow-suey (賴秀穗) on Wednesday published a column in the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper), saying Taiwan, as a member of the WTO, should “follow free -trade rules” and lift the ban on US pork containing ractopamine, a feed additive used to enhance meat leanness, and follow the Japanese and South Korean legal limits on ractopamine.
Imported beef is allowed to have ractopamine residue of less than 10 parts per billion (ppb), but the substance is banned in imported pork, as well as domestic beef and pork.
Lai said that while the nation’s pig industry was recovering from a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in 1997 and gradually phasing out vaccination to move toward a disease-free zone without vaccination — the World Organization for Animal Health’s highest classification — the government reinstated the vaccination policy in 2009 and destroyed previous epidemic prevention results. The industry spends NT$500 million (US$14.91 million) annually on pig inoculations.
Bureau Director Chang Su-san (張淑賢) yesterday said the bureau is to uphold the import ban.
Although UN food safety body the Codex Alimentarius Commission set allowable traces of ractopamine residue in pork at 10ppb, the amount could still pose significant health threats to Taiwanese consumers, as the limit is based on US dietary habits and Taiwanese consume more pork than Americans, Chang said.
“The US has a lower ractopamine residue limit for beef than for pork because Americans eat more beef than pork, but if ractopamine were safe, there would be no reason to do that,” Chang said.
Other Asian nations do not necessarily provide a good reference for Taiwan, she said, as about 34.2kg of pork is consumed per person per year in Taiwan, which is much higher than Japan and South Korea with per capita pork consumption of 15kg and 24kg respectively.
The government ceased foot-and-mouth disease vaccinations in 2008 following suggestions from the husbandry industry, but as more cases of the disease emerged in 2009, the government reinstated the vaccinations after negotiations with the industry and academics, Chang said.
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