Health top concern on beef issue: DOH

  2012/02/20 Taipei, Feb. 20 (CNA) Department of Health Minister Chiu Wen-ta said Monday that public health is the primary concern on whether to lift a ban on a leanness-enhancing drug in imported U.S. beef. "The views of experts will be taken into consideration," Chiu said one day before an Executive Yuan task force on U.S. beef was scheduled to hold a second meeting on the banned feed additive ractopamine. Chiu said the DOH will respect the views of experts and scholars and will conduct the risk assessment in a professional manner. Addressing remarks by Wang Jen-hsien, a China Medical University Hospital doctor who serves as commander of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in central Taiwan, that "Jeremy Lin eats U.S. beef and can play in the NBA," Chiu pointed out that scientific evidence is more important than anecdotal evidence. Meanwhile that day, a legislator of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) criticized what she described as "outrageous remarks" by officials and scholars recently on the beef issue, which she said "have contravened the instructions of President Ma Ying-jeou." Chen Ting-fei, a DPP caucus whip, was referring to Ma's three preconditions Sunday for the country's position on U.S. beef, including no preset stance, public health, and an overview and risk assessment by experts and scholars on ractopamine. But Chen also pointed to earlier remarks by Premier Sean Chen that "beta-agonists, which are even more toxic than ractopamine, are used in domestic asthma medicine so why can we not use it as a pig and cattle feed additive." Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Bao-ji has also noted that "U.S. consumers have used meat products containing ractopamine for years without any reported problems," according to Chen Ting-fei. Chen Ting-fei also said that a study cited by Huang Kuo-ching, deputy director-general of the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine, showing that pigs fed with ractopamine suffered from side effects, including mobility difficulties, "is part of a risk assessment." Chen also said that under the shadow of the impending opening to U.S. beef containing ractopamine, prices of cattle and pigs have slumped by 15 percent over the past month. In turn, Lin Hung-chih, a legislative caucus whip of the ruling Kuomintang, said the premier's remarks were "taken out of context." Premier Chen was actually saying that the public has misgivings about the issue and that the COA has to explain the matter clearly.