Housewives' Union: Stop importing American beef, zero detection of clenbuterol

The issue of ractopamine has once again caused a stir. Civic groups including the Housewives Union, the Food Safety Union, and the Citizens' Alliance to Oversee Congress went to the front of the Presidential Palace in Taipei on the morning of the 26th to protest, demanding an end to the import of American beef and zero detection of ractopamine. Civil society groups stressed that at a time when the risk of mad cow disease in American beef has not been completely eliminated, American beef is once again knocking on the door, hoping to lift the ban on ractopamine, which is a major threat to the health of the Chinese people. I hope the Legislative Yuan can formulate food safety regulations and strictly establish a "zero detection" standard for high-risk foods such as American beef to protect the health and safety of the public.

Civic groups including the Housewives Union and the Citizens' Alliance to Oversee Congress went to the front of the Presidential Palace in Taipei to protest, demanding an end to the import of American beef and zero detection of ractopamine. (Photo courtesy of Housewives' Union)

On the 24th, the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed that there were cases of mad cow disease in dairy cows in California. This is the fourth local case of mad cow disease in the United States since the disease was first discovered in 2003. It has attracted close attention from countries that import American beef, such as Japan and South Korea. South Korea has announced a complete ban on the import of American beef, which has sparked heated discussions on the issue of American beef in Taiwan.

Secretary-General Lu Meiluan of the Housewives' Union Environmental Protection Foundation emphasized that American beef with ractopamine is coming on strong, and the ractopamine that is harmful to the human body may be lifted. Therefore, the Housewives' Union advocates that domestic consensus should be sought first, and only after international consensus is reached on the use of ractopamine can negotiations with the United States be carried out. The random inspection ratio should be increased to catch American beef with lean meat that is trying to slip through the cracks for the sake of people’s health.

In addition, Lu Meiluan pointed out that when Executive Yuan Director-General of the Department of Health Chiu Wen-ta attended the Legislative Yuan's Social Welfare and Health Environment Committee on the 25th, he stated that although the US side has confirmed the news, according to the provisions of the Taiwan-US Beef Protocol, the United States must take the initiative to notify Taiwan. She stressed that this is related to the health of the people, but our government is still "investigating" and "waiting", and hoped that the legislative branch could speed up the pace of legislation so that the government has something to follow.

Zhang Honglin, executive director of the Citizens' Alliance for Oversight of Congress, stressed that he expressed serious protest against the Executive Yuan's arbitrary distortion of the conclusions of the expert meeting, disregard for the spirit of scientific discussion, and infringement on the health of the people in order to quickly open up imports of beef containing ractopamine.

Zhang Honglin pointed out that clenbuterol is still a banned substance in the country, and clenbuterol has been continuously detected in commercially available U.S. beef, indicating that the government's long-promised three-control and five-card policy has failed, and that the cabinet's peace of mind has failed. This is because the clenbuterol testing bill was prepared for review in 2006 as an executive order, and it is a different issue from mad cow disease. The government has temporarily suspended review of the clenbuterol legislation bill due to the mad cow disease incident in the United States, attempting to retain the original executive order, which has led to people questioning whether the government wants to use the executive order to allow the clenbuterol case to pass.

Civil society groups believe that American beef containing ractopamine is shipped to countries with weaker situations, such as Taiwan or other third world countries, while meat without additives is reserved for domestic use and countries with stronger situations and higher standards, such as the European Union. This repressive and forced sales trend ignores the equal human rights of all and shows that the US government does not care about the health of the Taiwanese people.