Would you feel palpitations if you eat 500 kilograms of American beef? Scholars: 5 kg is excessive

Several non-governmental organizations including the Care for Life Association and the Housewives Union Environmental Protection Foundation, as well as Democratic Progressive Party legislators You Mei-nyeo and Tian Qiujin, held a press conference at the Legislative Yuan this morning on the 23rd titled "Reject the 'Black Meat' Policy." They put forward demands such as not acknowledging the black box meetings, not eating unscrupulous meat, and not compromising in citizen actions. They also called on the government not to import meat containing ractopamine.

He also pointed out that the inter-ministerial US beef technical advisory group meeting held yesterday was not open and transparent, and the representativeness of experts was also questioned. The government cannot ignore the health of the people. The civil groups do not rule out taking to the streets to protest, and hope that the government will respond to their demands.

Whether American beef containing ractopamine should be allowed to enter the country has sparked heated discussion among the public.

The Executive Yuan held the second inter-departmental group meeting on U.S. beef yesterday, inviting 16 scholars and experts to discuss the issue. During the meeting, foreign literature was cited that pointed out that a person must eat 500 kilograms of meat at a time to experience palpitations due to ractopamine. The conclusion of the meeting also showed that more than 10 years of related research has not found any side effects on consumers from eating U.S. beef. Some domestic scholars hold opposing views on this.

Professor Zhan Dongrong of the National Taiwan University College of Veterinary Medicine said that foreign literature indicates that people must directly take a dose of more than 5,000 micrograms of ractopamine orally to cause side effects such as palpitations. If calculated at 10 micrograms per kilogram of meat residue, it is equivalent to eating 500 kilograms of meat at one time. As for the meeting's conclusion that no consumer experienced side effects from eating American beef, Zhan Dongrong did not deny the lack of evidence and documentary support for this part.

In response to this, Lin Jieliang, director of the clinical toxicology department of Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, countered that if 1 kilogram contained 10 micrograms of clerctopamine, one would have to eat 500 kilograms of meat at a time to experience palpitations, which is equivalent to eating 2,083 8-ounce steaks to experience side effects. This argument is not in line with public health professionals. In addition, in order to take into account high-risk groups such as the elderly, children, pregnant women, and those with cardiovascular diseases, the WHO and FDA have required that the report must be 50 to 100 times more rigorous. That is, the 500-kg base amount must be divided by 100 times. A 50-kg person may exceed the limit by eating just 5 kg of beef, and eating 150 grams of pig lungs alone may also exceed the standard.

Kang Zhaozhou, director of the Food and Drug Administration of the Department of Health, said that three human experiment research cases (a total of 18 people participated in the human experiments) have been found so far. The results showed that side effects such as tracheal relaxation and increased heart rate will only occur when taking more than 5 mg of ractopamine. However, the meat containing clenbuterol found on the market contains about 3 micrograms per kilogram. If the calculation basis is enlarged to 5 micrograms, it is equivalent to eating 1,000 kilograms of meat. However, since it is impossible for the average person to eat 1,000 kilograms of meat at a single time, it is impossible to conduct experiments and provide evidence.