The Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine: There are conclusions from the expert meeting and national interests are taken into consideration

In response to some of the attendees of the 3rd meeting of the Technical Advisory Group of the "Food and Drug Safety Project Report" stating that there was no conclusion at the meeting, the Council of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine Bureau explained on the evening of the 21st that the meeting did reach some conclusions after heated discussions among scholars and experts present. Based on the conclusions of the above meeting and after considering the overall interests of the country, the Executive Yuan proposed the four principles of "safety allowance, separation of cattle and pigs, mandatory labeling, and exclusion of offal" as a policy stance for external communication.

The Council of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine Bureau explained on the evening of the 21st that after heated discussions among participating scholars and experts at the 3rd meeting, some conclusions were indeed reached. After considering the overall interests of the country, the four principles of "safety allowance, separation of cattle and pigs, mandatory labeling, and exclusion of offal" were proposed.

The Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine stated that one of the conclusions of the third meeting of the Technical Advisory Group was: "According to existing foreign literature, ractopamine will cause side effects such as palpitations when taken orally at a dose of 5,000 micrograms (μg) or more. According to the literature that Director Lin Jieliang and Professor Zhan Dongrong have reviewed, no large-scale safety epidemiological studies on human consumption of meat containing ractopamine have been found, nor have any case reports of consumers being poisoned by consuming meat. In addition, ractopamine has a short half-life in the human body, and more than 80% can be eliminated within 24 hours."

In other words, there is no scientific evidence to date to prove that meat produced by adding ractopamine to feed is harmful to the human body. Against this backdrop, the government makes decisions by weighing other important national interests, including domestic livestock industry development, international trade and trade liberalization, regional economic integration processes and external relations.

The Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine emphasized that the text of the conclusions of the three meetings held by the technical advisory group were projected on the screen and discussed and revised word by word by all the experts and scholars present, so they reached a consensus among all. In addition, the government has been fully disclosing relevant information on ractopamine and the conclusions of the three meetings of the Technical Advisory Group through various official channels for reference and review by all sectors of society.