Will banning American beef lead to lawsuits? Department of Health: Clenbuterol is not applicable

In order to defend the safety of the lean meat stimulant "ractopamine", American livestock and cattle producers took out full-page advertisements today, emphasizing that the Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex) has confirmed the safety of ractopamine three times, but has not been able to formally set standards due to opposition from the European Union. They also pointed out that the EU's measure has been defeated by the WTO.

There has been a heated debate in the Legislative Yuan over whether American beef containing ractopamine can be imported. American livestock and cattle farmers took out full-page advertisements today, emphasizing that the International Food Codex Commission (Codex) has confirmed the safety of ractopamine three times. (Photography by Zhang Yawen)

However, Kang Zhaozhou, director of the Food and Drug Administration of the Department of Health, said that the EU lost the case because it banned the import of hormone meat products that met international standards, but there is currently no international standard for clenbuterol, so it does not apply to clenbuterol.

The issue of whether American beef containing ractopamine can be imported has been hotly debated in the Legislative Yuan. Many legislators believe that they should wait until Codex sets international standards before discussing the issue. However, American livestock and cattle farmers published a full-page advertisement in the Commercial Times on the 26th, pointing out that the safety of ractopamine has been confirmed by Codex, and the only thing left is the final step of formally setting standards. Because the EU holds the position of "banning any growth hormones", the final step is to block ractopamine.

Kang Zhaozhou, director of the Food and Drug Administration, said that Codex does not interfere with the measures of various countries on these additives, but will coordinate countries to share a standard, which becomes the so-called international standard. The WTO requires all member countries to conduct free trade under this standard. Therefore, when hormones meet certain standards and can be used in meat products, the European Union prohibits the import of such meat products. Therefore, the United States sued and ruled against it.

However, there is currently no international standard for ractopamine, so Kang Zhaozhou believes that this example does not apply to clenbuterol. Even if our country bans the import of American beef containing clenbuterol, it will not be sued. However, he also believes that in the absence of international standards, if our country imports based on other considerations, there is more room to set conditional import restrictions such as "separation of cattle and pigs."

Codex will be held next week, but Kang Zhaozhou pointed out that since Codex adopts consensus decision-making, it is known that the EU and mainland China strongly oppose it, so "the chance of passing is not high", but it is also unlikely to overturn the previous determination of the safety of ractopamine.

The Executive Yuan recently announced that whether Taiwan will open up to American beef containing ractopamine will depend on the time when the Legislative Yuan convenes an extraordinary session to complete the amendment of the Food Sanitation Management Act, and will not open it up directly by administrative order.