CODEX AVOIDS IMPLOSION - BY FIVE VOTES

by Scott Tips, JD
July 17, 2011
NewsWithViews.com
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Ractopamine Almost Shoved Down the Throats of 70% of World's Pork Consumers Who Don't Want it

It was high drama worthy of any best-selling spy thriller as intrigue and rumors of blackmail coursed through the room with near reckless abandon. Passions were high and stances adamant. With such an electric atmosphere, one could have thought that nations were being partitioned, or even put to the sword. Yet, for us, the essential reality was not that distant a cousin. There were countries trying to impose their will on the majority, trying to pollute the World with a poison that would injure many millions. The stakes were serious.


A Codex delegate casts his vote on the Ractopamine issue

Surprisingly, the battlefield for this drama was in a modern, air-conditioned meeting hall rented by the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) for its 34th session in Geneva, Switzerland this last week of July 4-9, 2011. More jammed together than at last year’s meeting in a larger hall, the elbow-jostling delegates and their emotions were not helped by such close quarters. Still, the outgoing Chairwoman Dr. Karen Hulebak and the Codex staff did a commendable job at moving the lengthy agenda along to completion, allowing all parties, including the National Health Federation (NHF), to have their say during the debates.

Ractopamine . . . Again

The issue that created the most strife among the delegates, though, was the highly charged draft standard for ractopamine Maximum Residue Levels (MRLs).[1] Those who have been following this Codex debate will remember that ractopamine is a beta-agonist drug given to pigs and cattle to promote protein and weight gain before slaughter. This veterinary drug, developed and owned by Eli Lilly’s Elanco Technology, takes nutrients away from fat production and pushes them instead into muscle, creating a leaner and more-valuable animal[2] While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved this drug for animal use in 2002, three years later it sent Elanco a warning letter accusing the company of withholding critical information that had led to approval.[3]

Most of the World’s countries (some 160 at last count) wisely do not allow ractopamine-doped meat to be sold within their borders. Especially strict is the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), which has found that ractopamine constricts blood vessels and quickens the heart.[4] EFSA also has strong concerns about the drug’s carcinogenicity as well as its stressing and other adverse effects on the animals given the drug. As for humans, since there is no clearance period of two weeks prior to slaughter as with other veterinary drugs to rid the meat of drug residues, consumers are being medicated with ractopamine residue when they eat the treated meat.[5] The Chinese Government has spent many millions of Yuan in studies of the health effects of ractopamine and, convinced of its health risks, has banned both its import and export.[6] As a further nail in ractopamine’s coffin, EFSA and its member states have a very sensible public-health policy against drugging healthy animals just for steroid-like effects.

Yet, JECFA[7] conducted its own industry-influenced assessments of the risks of ractopamine and established MRLs for ractopamine residues that have been seized upon by the drug’s promoters as “proofâ€