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The Food and Environment Reporting Network
Updated on Feb. 22: A clarification to the Jan. 25, 2012, story “Dispute over Drug in Feed, Limiting US Exports” has been issued, making clear that the adverse drug effects for ractopamine were reported to the FDA. The story adds that the FDA says such data do not establish that the drug caused these effects.
A drug used to keep pigs lean and boost their growth is jeopardizing the nation’s exports of what once was known as “the other white meat.”
The drug, ractopamine hydrochloride, is fed to pigs and other animals right up until slaughter and minute traces have been found in meat. The European Union, China, Taiwan and many others have banned its use, citing concerns about its effect on human health, limiting U.S. meat exports to key markets.
Although few Americans outside of the livestock industry have ever heard of ractopamine, the feed additive is controversial. Fed to an estimated 60 to 80 percent of pigs in the United States, it has resulted in more reports of sickened or dead pigs than any other livestock drug on the market, an investigation of Food and Drug Administration records shows.
Growing concern over sick animals in the nation's food supply sparked a California law banning the sale and slaughter of livestock unable to walk, but that law was struck down by the Supreme Court Monday. Meat producers had sued to overturn California’s ban, arguing that the state could not supercede federal rules on meat production. The court agreed.
The FDA, which regulates livestock drugs in the United States, deemed ractopamine safe 13 years ago and approved it, setting a level of acceptable residues in meat. Canada and 24 other countries approved the drug as well.
U.S. trade officials are now pressing more countries to accept meat from animals raised on ractopamine -- a move opposed by China and the EU. Resolving the impasse is a top agricultural trade priority for the Obama administration, which is trying to boost exports and help revive the economy, trade officials say.
U.S. exports of beef and pork are on track to hit $5 billion each for the first time, the U.S. Meat Export Federation estimates. Pork exports to China quadrupled from 2005 to 2010 to $463 million but are still only 2-3 percent of the market.
“China is a potentially huge market for us,” said Dave Warner, spokesman for the National Pork Producers Council.
Part of a class of drugs called beta-agonists, ractopamine mimics stress hormones, making the heart beat faster and relaxing blood vessels. Some beta-agonists are used to treat people with asthma or heart failure, but ractopamine has not been proposed for human use.
In animals, ractopamine revs up production of lean meat, reducing fat. Pigs fed the drug in the last weeks of their life produce an average of 10 percent more meat, compared with animals on the same amount of feed that don't receive the drug. That raises profits by $2 per head, according to the drug's manufacturer, Elanco, a division of Eli Lilly. It sells the drug under the brand name Paylean.
Ractopamine leaves animals' bodies quickly, with pig studies showing about 85 percent excreted within a day. But low levels of residues can still be detected in animals more than a week after they've consumed the drug.
While the Department of Agriculture has found traces of ractopamine in American beef and pork, they have not exceeded levels the FDA has determined are safe.
But because countries like China and Taiwan have no safety threshold, traces of the drug have led to rejection of some U.S. meat shipments. The EU requires U.S. exporters to certify their meat is ractopamine-free, and China requires a similar assurance for pork.
Some U.S. food companies also avoid meat produced with the feed additive, including Chipotle restaurants, meat producer Niman Ranch and Whole Foods Markets.
The FDA ruled that ractopamine was safe and approved it for pigs in 1999, for cattle in 2003 and turkeys in 2008. As with many drugs, the approval process relied on safety studies conducted by the drug-maker -- studies that lie at the heart of the current trade dispute.
Elanco mainly tested animals -- mice, rats, monkeys and dogs -- to judge how much ractopamine could be safely consumed. Only one human study was used in the safety assessment by Elanco, and among the six healthy young men who participated, one was removed because his heart began racing and pounding abnormally, according to a detailed evaluation of the study by European food safety officials.
When Elanco studied the drug in pigs for its effectiveness, it reported that "no adverse effects were observed for any treatments." But within a few years of Paylean's approval, the company received hundreds of reports of sickened pigs from farmers and veterinarians, according to records from the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine.
USDA meat inspectors also reported an increase in the number of "downer pigs" -- lame animals unable to walk -- in slaughter plants. As a result of the high number of adverse reactions, the FDA requested Elanco add a warning label to the drug, and it did so in 2002.
The company also received a warning letter from the FDA that year for failing to disclose all data about the safety and effectiveness of the drug.
Since the drug was introduced, more than 218,000 pigs taking ractopamine were reported to have suffered adverse effects, as of March 2011, according to a review of FDA records. The drug has triggered more adverse reports in pigs than any other animal drug on the market. Pigs suffered from hyperactivity, trembling, broken limbs, inability to walk and death, according to FDA reports released under a Freedom of Information Act request. The FDA, however, says such data do not establish that the drug caused these effects.
"I've personally seen people overuse the drug in hogs and cattle," said Temple Grandin, a professor at Colorado State University and animal welfare expert. "I was in a plant once where they used too much ractopamine and the pigs were so weak they couldn't walk. They had five or six people just dedicated to handling the lame pigs."
But she noted that producers have since scaled back use in response to the rash of illnesses.
"Our company takes adverse event reporting very seriously and is overly inclusive on the information we submit to ensure we're meeting all requirements," Elanco spokeswoman Colleen Par Dekker said. She said the label change in 2002 resulted from an ongoing process of evaluating adverse effects of the drug, adding that an industry trend towards heavier pigs contributed to rising numbers of lame animals in this period.
By 2003, with ractopamine rolling out across the livestock industry, U.S. trade officials began pressing to open world markets for meat produced with the feed additive. Their effort focused on a relatively obscure corner of the trade world -- the U.N.'s Codex Alimentarius Commission, which sets global food-safety standards.
Setting a Codex standard for ractopamine would strengthen Washington's ability to challenge other countries' meat import bans at the World Trade Organization.
The issue has reached the last step in Codex's approval process, but since 2008 the commission has been deadlocked over one central question: What, if any, level of ractopamine is safe in meat?
The EU and China, which together produce and consume about 70 percent of the world’s pork, have blocked the repeated efforts of U.S. trade officials to get a residue limit. European scientists sharply questioned the science backing the drug's safety, and Chinese officials were concerned about higher residues in organ meats, which are consumed in China.
“The main problem for us is that the safety of the product could not be supported with the data,” said Claudia Roncancio-Peña, a scientist who led the European food safety panel studying the drug.
U.S. trade officials say China wants to limit competition from U.S. companies, and the EU does not want to risk a public outcry by importing meat raised with growth-promoting drugs, which are illegal there.
The issue also has strained the U.S.-Taiwan trade relationship, since Taiwan -– the sixth-largest market for U.S. beef and pork –- began testing for ractopamine last year. It found traces in American beef and pork and pulled meat from store shelves, according to local press reports.
In the U.S., residue tests for ractopamine are limited. In 2010, for example, the U.S. did no tests on 22 billion pounds of pork; 712 samples were taken from 26 billion pounds of beef. Those results have not yet been released.
This article was produced by the Food and Environment Reporting Network, an independent, non-profit news organization providing investigative reporting on food, agriculture and environmental health.
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Mmmmmmm, BACON!
Mmmmmmm Beer and Brawts..
I don't blame them. Would you want your countrymen to look like Americans?
Growth hormones allow pigs to get much larger much faster than they would normally.
Take a look around the US - you are what you eat?
This isn't funny!!!!
This is NOT a growth hormone. It is a beta-antagonist, similar to Bisoprolol, that you more commonly see as a cardiac drug in the treatment of congestive heart failure.
This one is actually pretty easy to fix. Since the drug has an extremely short half-life, the residual amounts can be greatly reduced (even though they are tiny to start with) by stopping the drug a short time before slaughter. But the issue is that when the FDA sets a "safe" limit, it gives license to livestock farmers to use as much as they want to get as close to that line as possible. This is just capitalism at work.
The problem is that most countries forbid the use of such drugs outright. Either their farming methods (for example, China which tends to get its pork from small farmers who can't aford the drug or are too poorly educated to use it effectively) or their view of additives (for example, Europeans tend to want organic meat with no anti-biotics or drugs.) We add the drug to increase profits by keeping the meat lean. Surprisingly, both the Chinese and Europeans like their pork with much more fat.
Much of this, however, involves nothing more than China and the ECC trying to protect their markets from American agricultural products. After all, the Chinese were not all that upset by the exploding watermelons on recent videos (some watermelon farmers were using a chemical that made the rind harder so it would ship better, but also used a chemical that caused the melon to grow extremely fast --- the result was melons that exploded.)
I no almost nothing about what additives are put into animal feeds; however , I remember as a kid, we bought our chicken from a local market, it had a taste of chicken, today chicken has no taste; plus the growth hormones to make poultry and meat animals grow fast and fat, question; could the residue in the products also cause humans to fatten up also.
Chris-749391 sounds like he may be an industry insider of one type or another. From the consumer's perspective, who would want to ingest drugs in their meat? They are often used only to fatten corporate profits. I am an Iowan - let me tell you that everything has changed in the feeding of animals in the last few decades. We have gone from small businessmen (farmers) raising our animals in feed lots and pastures to corporate agriculture raising our animals in confinement using whatever feed additives and drugs industry lobbyists can get approved (which they feel are needed to maximize return). It's not a pretty picture. I have for the most part stopped eating meat unless I can find it organically raised. Corporate interests will not change their practices until the market tells them to.
To me, the solution is far more simple than forcing other countries to accept the drug. Stop using the drug or stop complaining that they are not buying your meat. They are the consumer in this situation. If they don't want to buy your meat because of the drug-either stop using the drug or accept the loss of business.
What if China started presuring us to buy meat or goods that we felt were unsafe? There would be outrage if the country accepted.
I do question the effect that all of these drugs and hormones have on us. I appreciate the benefits of modern science-but it seems that there i a lot of discussion about the safety of this drug-and I would rather err on the side of caution-and don't blame their countries for doing the same.
This makes me sick. Honestly, if CHINA won’t take it, what does that say about this chemical? It must be PRETTY bad. I feel really sick now. IS ANYTHING SAFE???
Wow, that really says something, when China, the king of ethical manufacturing, forbids us to feed our meat to their people!
Can you say tainted baby formula? How about toxins in pharmaceuticals? Or lead paint on our kids toys?
What a joke!
exactly, if CHINA won't take it, what's it doing to us and the pigs. I'm done with meat too. I like meat but the inhumane treatment of factory raised and inhumanely killed animals has turned me off meat completely.
Steve, it's not the hormones in the food that make you fat, it's the absurd quantities that Americans consume combined with the lack of exercise. Think about it for a second, the additives given to livestock are geared to making them develop more meat not fat, so Americans would be full of lean muscle if the hormone was really getting passed on to you. Talk to some real dietitians/nutritionists before you blindly believe everything you read. And while you're at it ask them about organic foods, they'll debunk most of that hype too.
Eat up fat americans! I thought pigs were used in GEICO commercials. You people(americans etc anyone who eats factory food) deserve to die early deaths. Eat your brats and bacon you are what you eat may you be reborn as one of the pigs you eat so you can feel their pain and abuse. Rot in pork HE**
This is a timely article for me. Like discguy, I won't eat any meat or eggs which come from factory pharms. I thought I was lucky when an independent farmer who advertises ". . .animals graze on grass in large, open pastures. Their diets are supplemented with grain -- free of any animal by-products. Growth hormones, implants, and other ‘garbage’ are NOT used." started coming to our local famers' market.
Now, all advertising refers to beef, which I don't eat, but I assumed it applied to chicken and pork as well. The first pork ribs I tied weren't the best but I wrote that off as a result of freezing, pasturage etc. The bacon was excellent. Next, I tried chicken. There was no excusing that it was inedible -- worse even than retail chicken.
Last night, I once again fixed pork ribs. They too were inedible. I remembered the owner of the farm saying something about the pork and chicken being contracted out to other small farmers. I am convinced they may well use drugs, hormones, and 'other garbage'. This would not be fraudulent since only the beef is advertised.
So, this is a cautionary tale. Consumers who insist on high quality can leave no question unasked. It's a buyer beware world.
So stop putting the crap in the feed and open the markets abroad! No brainer!!
Here we go again, forget about human health its all about money. The industry is wiiling to sacrifice you for a profit of $2 a pig. I'm am very skeptical of studies funded by a company which stands to gain by the results. They should have to pay to have the FDA conduct the testing. Our Congress is too influenced by their contributors to improve the quality of life for the rest of us by properly funding the FDA/ USDA.
Sounds to me like the FDA needs to pull the plug on Paylean!!!
The supreme court says the federal rules for binding arbitration in contracts are superceeded by the state but not the rules on safe food. This court needs to be subject to a recall. They have shown their bias and need to be removed.
The meat industry has been adding chemicals to our food increasingly over the last 20 years or so. I mostly stopped eating pork when it became hard to find pork not "enhanced" with a salt water chemical solution. Now chicken, turkey, and even beef are being "enhanced." Not only does it give the meat a chemical taste, but you also get less meat per pound. I doubt many people even notice, but I won't buy any meat that's been "enhanced." They like to claim it's "tender and juicy," but it tastes like it was grown in a vat of chemicals.
Maybe we should just export ractopamine free meat instead of trying to force them to accept something they don't want. The meat industry wants us to believe that all these chemicals, steriods, and antibiotics in meat are not harmful, but why should we accept the possible risk? It's getting more and more difficult to find wholesome and healthy food that hasn't been processed or "enhanced" in some way.
"The EU and China, which together produce and consume about 70 percent of the world’s pork, have blocked the repeated efforts of U.S. trade officials to get a residue limit. European scientists sharply questioned the science backing the drug's safety, and Chinese officials were concerned about higher residues in organ meats, which are consumed in China."
Thank god for some intelligent humans elsewhere in the world having the stamina to fight against unsafe food and not buying from Bully America!
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States and is a major cause of disability.
http://www.cdc.gov/features/heartmonth/
Out of one side of their mouth the government says fine ply these animals with drugs that damage the heart of the animal and remain in the meat that humans consume, then wring their hands woe is me, heart disease is number one killer in America? Now that is totally schizophrenic.
Our meat's not good enough for CHINA????
Ok, what are they feeding us?
theCavalier
You probably don't want to know.
Worse yet less than 2% of imported food is inspected, so who knows what is in it.
Better life through chemicals I say. I still won't buy anything from china. They're probably pissed about something not going their way.
"WARNING" labels...should be required on any meat containing the drug, "ractopamine hydrochloride"......All chlorinated hydrocarbons are hazardous to humans....."WOW"...profit , over safety.....again...
There is no question that this drug is bad for people eating pork, but China is using every trick not to buy stuff from US. We should do the same. There were so many scandals with contaminated goods from China sold on American market. We should protect our own population and our own economy.
"Growing concern over sick animals in the nation's food supply sparked a California law banning the sale and slaughter of livestock unable to walk, but that law was struck down by the Supreme Court Monday. Meat producers had sued to overturn California’s ban, arguing that the state could not supercede federal rules on meat production. The court agreed."
I can't believe that the SCOTUS ruled to allow corporate America to continue to poison us without any concern. Not only do they want to continue the use of growth hormones and "preventive" antibiotics, they want to continue to sell downer creatures. We are a rudderless ship.
I suggest you folks try Kobe beef.
Word on the street is the cows are fed beer and ice-cream, plus they have people massage the cows buttocks to ensure an even marble.
I picked one up at the MGM Grand in Detroit, cost about $80 for a tenderloin, think it was 10 or 14 oz. Good piece of meat, lots of flavor and really it makes all other steaks taste somewhat lacking.
Come to find out later that Kobe Beef is traditionally out of Japan, so now I am wondering if my tender Kobe steak was a result of Fukashima raised cows? LOL
I hate crap meat, and unless I am using a BBQ there is no way Ill buy anything but lean beef. Bacon has to be lean too.
Steaks are on my top 10 list of weaknesses.
I cut back on eating either Pork or Chicken, it taste weird to me, I never knew they used these things tell reading this article.
How would the US feel if the Chinese started pressing Americans to accept a higher level of lead in toys than they feel are safe?
The UK banned US beef imports decades ago (Reason: HGH [human growth hormones] fed to animals)
Why don't they develop a masking drug to cover up the drugs the Chinese don't like? That way, we could secretly fatten up all of the Chinese, and pretty soon they couldn't exercise any longer or support themselves and would start borrowing money from us!
Oh............wait a minute, we already did that to ourselves.........never mind!
ANY lead in children's toys, food stuffs, etc. should be banned. Ever thought about that water, sodas, re-constituted juices, etc.? How about that "solution" that has been injected into various meats? That definitely should be banned here. How about that fish you eat? Test it. It probably has mercury in it. How about that produce you buy. Even "vine-ripened" tomatoes taste like cardboard. Reason: Artificial ripening via the use of a certain poisonous gas.
As to "Organic". Forget it. Manure and vegetable matter from wherever may have been used as a fertilizer. Not bad in itself, but manure and vegetable matter should be fully composted and dried before use. Often it is not.
Yet, the FDA and the USDA routinely permits some trace of various chemicals BECAUSE foods would be extremely expensive and almost impossible to find any food that was completely free of some type of chemical or element found to be dangerous above a certain amount. However, when evidence shows a likelihood of being dangerous at any level, do a complete ban on its usage or manufacture.
@Phil: Was that UK ban on US beef imports around the same time that we banned the import of their beef because of their Mad Cow disease? All I know is when I was in the military stationed in England (RAF Lakenheath) I "MIGHT" have eaten beef infected with mad cow disease so now I am not allowed to donate blood and have been removed from the organ donor registry.
Seems to me this is a Catch 22 situation .... if you eat meat treated with chemicals - you 'MIGHT' be infected with those chemicals but if you eat meat that was not treated with chemicals - you 'MIGHT' be infected with a disease.
But then again, if you don't eat meat you 'MIGHT' die or your teeth 'MIGHT' fall out or you 'MIGHT' die being hit by a bus or you 'MIGHT' ........
Though not stated, this drug is probably being given to the pigs, because factory farms keep them in tight quarters for life, with no exercise ever.
SCGuardian, please clarify. Are you not implying that if compost processes were always done properly, then organic food would definitely be the best?
This is business as usual here in the US.. Corporations want more profit so the buy the legislators and studies and bend them to meet the corporate model.. Who gives a crap about side effects because profits are up and that CEO will be getting his tax free bonus..
DaveWH: You may well be right, & I agree with what your saying, I too cannot give blood.
However I always thought Mad Cow was a reference to my first wife.
In this case, I thank China and any other country who oppose importing meat/food with known drug additives.
I oppose buying and eating meat and food with drug additives, (approved by USDA).
It is funny that China, the home of multiple toxic products, is upset about this. I am not saying that forcing the American people to unknowingly ingest a beta agonist to increase profit is a good idea.
It would be easier to simply ditch the drug. This is just another example of our government serving the pharma lobby.
I wonder if America's epidemic of insomnia has anything to do with this drug in our meat. I know that most of my friends and family have a very hard time falling and then staying asleep anymore and most of us aren't on any kind of medications to cause it. This "safe" drug seems to be some kind of hormone that causes amphetamine-like symptoms....just sayin'
Lay off the coffee, coca cola and mountain dew.. My buddy was complaining about his whole family being restless and staying up until after midnight almost every night.. Watched them kill 3- 2 liter bottles of mountain dew with their pizza for dinner, eat 2 boxes of zingers for desert and just said wow..
Some Countries don't allow the poison in thier foods that out Bureaucrats allow dumped on us.
why dont we instead huff clenbuterol and let livestock develop on its own.. seriously it sounds like a another case of over medicating... hell i want bacon and a couple of huffs of albuterol. mmmmm big ol bowl of pills.....mmmm
They really need to stop playing with the food chain. Pigs are meant to be fat which is why we have the term "FAT PIG". The meat I eat these days are the worst, steaks and hamburgers that taste like cardboard. The sad fact of the matter is the taste in meat comes from the fat it's what gives meat that flavor. Now, I can cook a cheeseburger and in the end the pan is dry in years gone by if I made one cheeseburger there was enough grease in the pan to fry up some potatoes and it was the most juiciest burger around. I understand that there are people in our society that want to eat healthy but I know like myself there are those that would like to have the choice of lean or fat meat. Stop making my decisions for me and let me decide, I have health insurance for a reason and do not fear dying it's my choice and I'm the one who has to make it not the industry or the government.
snappa this has nothing with the government trying to make you healthy. It has everything to do with the government approving unsafe drugs for livestock in order to pander to corporate profits. It allows companies to sell more of the pig and make more money consequences to the end consumer be damned.
I eat healthy and use organic beef, chicken and pork. I specifically buy my pigs, beef and chicken FAT. I don't believe that it is just about the FAT. I believe that the chemicals make the situation much worse.
Also, I notice my hunger is satisfied with less food, I feel better after I eat so I am more active and no longer have mild encephalitic shock when I especially eat pork or ham where my throat closes up and if I don't get rid of it the pain is horrendous.
I now make my own lard which I use instead of the chemically enhanced fats and also feel better.
When I have guests they comment on how good it taste's and how good they feel.
Since I've made these changes my Tum's intake has dropped by 90%.
Waukone has figured it out. Too bad the rest of the country is too brainwashed to follow suit, figure out that dietary fat is not the enemy, and that chemical laden food is bad for you.
And it's just strange the high rise in horrific and senseless deaths and sociopathic attitudes of children coincide with the approval to inject our food supply with this drug.
There are too many things the FDA and our government has approved as being harmless that have later proved to be the opposite. Fortunately for the manufacturers of the "safe" product, by the time the "oops" was discovered, the company producing it had reaped its monetary rewards that far outweighed the court settlements for the damaged and ruined lives they caused.
Whilst I take your point; and agree to a large extent, the forced cessation of smoking could also be tied into the bad behavior of adults (air rage, road rage, work place rage)
Listening to cons we don't even need the FDA.
This whole thing stinks of Monsanto and they basically own the FDA, if you haven't noticed the dairy producers who DON'T use Bovine Growth Hormone have to label their products saying that the FDA says there is nothing wrong with Bovine Growth Hormone.
During the last 20 years the FDA and the EPA have had someone from monsanto either running the show or pulling the strings.
Until we stop bickering over stupid BS and join together as one nation to force them to stop using us as lab rats nothing will change.
This whole thing stinks of Monsanto and they basically own the FDA, if you haven't noticed the dairy producers who DON'T use Bovine Growth Hormone have to label their products saying that the FDA says there is nothing wrong with Bovine Growth Hormone.
During the last 20 years the FDA and the EPA have had someone from monsanto either running the show or pulling the strings.
Until we stop bickering over stupid BS and join together as one nation to force them to stop using us as lab rats nothing will change.
Eliminate ALL growth hormones. Do we have any idea what they do to humans? True, the "allowable limits" are minute, but exposure over a long period equals what?
Remember that whatever they're force feeding animals and whatever they use on plants, eventually find their way in YOU. Do you know what it will do to YOU or your family? What interactions will medications you take have with the minute "traces" of drugs induced through eating? Personally, I'm getting a little tired of being a walking guinea pig for the food and drug industries.
Except viagra...
I'm with the Chinese and EU on this, I'd rather this drug just be dropped. I'm tired of all the drugs & hormones being pumped into food. I'd much rather have eaten from those 218,000 pigs if they were allowed to grow and fatten naturally as opposed to a chemically-sped up process that killed them
Well, they going to kill us one way or the other !! Eat up die happy !!
Harper's did an expose on this. When the interviewer went into the housing facility, he had to don an all-over body suit that covered him from hair to shoes and had to wear a mask. These pigs are so hyper-sensitive, the door had to be closed v e r y s l o w l y. Slamming door sounds give these animals heart attacks!
I'm VERY careful about my meats anymore. It costs about 50% more, but then again, I feel my health and that of my family is worth it.
Amazing how these companies will protect their GREEDY ways! Screw the consumers again. I say YEAH to other countries that won't allow us to poison their peoples!
What a blame, as usual , money has become the center of our decisions. In Mexico as we try to export vegetables, fruits, or any food or beverage product, US is very very strict of what chemicals, residues are allowed, but they are pushing this?, What a surprise? money as it comes from 2 of the major economies competing against US (China and EU), they always thinking about the money. Is all about the greens!
Stop poisoning our food!
Let animals grow in a safe comfortable environment with lots of healthy food, sun shine, and exercise and you won't need additives that kill!
Stop poisoning our food!!!!
how about you limit the meats you eat, and not have meat everyday day. we have an obesity epidemic, and if its not obesity, then high blood pressure. we have a meat centered society. why can't i enjoy a fresh crisp salad (with no chicken btw) i DO enjoy the taste of vegetables. I do feel great. I do feel healthy. And guess what, I am vegetarian. I'm not proslytizing. just saying.
It's more like meat at EVERY meal, not just everyday.
The US needs to exercise much more caution with all animal feed additives, whether they are medicinal in nature, or strictly to enhance growth.
We've been beating the odds of a food born disaster for many years, and eventually, some such additive, could turn out to be the US's "Thalidomide", with horrible results.
Yeppers....The best government money can buy....thanks big pharma for feeding us all to our death...
Funny how we pressure them to accept it when all we need to do is listen to the consumer and stop it's use. I mean isn't that what so many want a market based economy???
Of course we also want lean meat but come on, it's such a bad PR image.
2$ per head extra profit, that's it folks, two bucks. For that they're willing to risk everything, every effing thing. It's so sad that our nation has become this.
$2 per head...I caught that too...I was just going to point out that the government is allowing this to happen for a mere couple of bucks....
I get my meat from a local butcher and I swear...The meat is so awesome...I think they whisper in the pigs ear while they kill them..."Don't struggle...It makes the meat tough...Relax...Be a pork roast...."
I think it is a sad day when a few bucks extra can be a reason to experiment with drugs in the food chain. Sick.
raise the price by 2 dollars and quit drugging the swine . healthier pigs and they save the cost of the drugs. equals more profit , even an idiot can figure out this means more money in there pocket . p.s. sell the excess fat to produce lard....
Lol, Hairfarmer, you kill me :)
And I agree, the whole thing is sick.
Funny thing is. This is just one of dozens and dozens of chemicals we are in-turn eating from our food supply that have " ACCEPTABLE LEVELS" as determined by the FDA.
YOU ARE FRIKING KILLING US!!!!
I have a feeling it is the INDUSTRY and their well-connected LOBBY pushing for the use of these 'profit-boosting' chemicals and pharmaceuticals and NOT the FDA! The FDA is merely trying to moderate and avoiding confrontations. If they push too hard for regulations, the hostile 'big-guv-screaming' is likely to follow...
Note how some of the biased interest groups and their mouth-pieces like Perry from Texas like to eliminate the 'watch-dog' intended to protect the public from GREED Inc. and their short-sighted follies! Surely there are MILLIONS at stake for the biggest fish, 'invested' in big agro-businesses and taxed at a mere 15%...
The only way I know of to make sure you're not ingesting a chemical from a plant or animal, is to grow it yourself. Since the avg. life expectancy goes up most every year, it sounds like there are a lot of 'wolf criers' out there.
Whereas the majority of American producers and companies and most of the Republicans in Congress don't give a damn about the health and safety of consumers that's not the case in some of the other countries. The EU doesn't allow half the @!$%# the U.S. government allows. Good for them.
Better thank twice the next time you pick up that piece of meat!
It sells the drug under the brand name Paylean.
Why didn't they just name it 'Mo-money'? It's similarly classless and equally obvious.
But seriously, how about we just abandon the drugs and range feed livestock, as opposed to the drugged, meat-mill animal prisons that we support today? We seem to be slowly working our way to Soylent Green ...
Soylent Green will never happen. Humans contain to many trace industrial and drug contaminates in our meat due to our extended consumption during our long lives.
But if humans are the ones consuming it, it should not matter then because we already have a tolerance built from its presence in our bodies...?????
I wonder about soylent orange and soylent blue??? :)