October 10, 2013

After detecting growth enhancer, Zilpaterol in cattle, South Korea has suspended about 22 tonnes of US beef imports, supplied by a work site from a unit of meat producer JBS USA.

Zilpaterol is a beta-agonist, a kind of feed additive that can add as much as 30 pounds of saleable meat to an animal in the weeks before slaughter. Beta-agonists, used for many years in the US feedlot industry, became the centre of a controversy within the US meat-processing industry after a cattle having difficulty walking was reported in August .

The feed additive is banned in South Korea and the country's food ministry said it had halted imports from the work site at Swift Beef Co, a unit of JBS USA, and asked the US to investigate the cause of the contamination. A JBS spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.

South Korean authorities were widening tests to all beef imports from the firm's work site, the food ministry's statement said.

Merck & Co, which makes the leading additive, a zilpaterol-based drug called Zilmax , suspended sales of the drug in the US and Canada while it carried out an audit of how it was being used, from the feed yard to the packing plant. Merck said it remained confident in the safety of the product, which had sales of US$159 million last year in the US and Canada.

The US has not banned the use of Zilmax but has also come under increased scrutiny since the largest US meat processor Tyson Foods Inc said in early August it would stop purchases of cattle fed with the feed additive after some animals showed having difficulty walking or moving.

South Korea imported 75,426 tonnes of US beef from January to September, with 4,697 tonnes coming from Swift Beef. South Korea said it had been strengthening scrutiny of US beef since Taiwan had also detected zilpaterol in US beef.