March 15, 2012

 

Taiwan's Tainan, Nantou officials search drug-tainted beef

 

 

Local officials in Tainan and Nantou are now looking for meat products with residues of ractopamine after a sample of drug-tainted beef was found in Chiayi County.

 

Health officials in Tainan confirmed Tuesday (Mar 13) that a beef sample obtained from a steak chain restaurant in the southern city contained 1.29 ppb of ractopamine. The restaurant owner said the meat was from New Zealand.

 

In a preliminary investigation, the Tainan officials found that the meat in question was a combination, possibly made up of layers of beef from different sources.

 

The restaurant said it had bought beef from a company in Kaohsiung that is supplied mainly by Shuh Sen Co. in Taipei, one of the major importers of US beef in Taiwan. The company has warehouses in Keelung and Kaohsiung.

 

The issue of US beef imports containing regulated residues of the leanness enhancer ractopamine has stirred a storm of controversy in Taiwan in recent weeks as the government is considering relaxing the ban on the drug to increase imports of US beef.

 

On Monday, 7,490 kg of US beef imported by Shuh Sen was destroyed in Taipei, marking the first time US beef has been incinerated in Taiwan because of ractopamine residues.

 

Tainan health officials confirmed Monday that a sample of another beef shipment contained 10.93 ppb of ractopamine.

 

Also on Monday, health officials found 0.88 ppb of zilpaterol, another kind of leanness enhancer, in a sample of beef, reportedly from Australia, sold at a supermarket in Chiayi County.

 

In Nantou County, a sample of sliced beef was found Tuesday to contain zilpaterol.

 

The company said it had delivered 3,000 packages of the sliced beef to the PXmart supermarket chain store since last November.

 

Nantou Health Bureau officials have started investigations to track Yukuo's upstream suppliers and to find out whether beef from other countries is been sold as Australian products.

 

As in Taiwan, the use of both zilpaterol and ractopamine is banned in beef production in Australia, according to the Australian representative office in Taipei.

 

Zilpaterol hydrochloride is an adrenergic agonist drug currently licensed in Mexico and South Africa as a feed additive for cattle at slaughter age.