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Following are highlights from an article written by Cynthia P. Schneider, U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands, regarding food safety. Schneider highlights the European Union (EU) beef ban and makes some interesting observations worth noting: "Almost a century ago, the U.S. Congress established the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, one of the world's oldest and most effective agencies fighting for a safer food supply. And yet, most of the beef we eat in America is banned in Europe. That ban has caused real economic damage to U.S. farmers, who have lost trade worth over $100 million a year for over ten years. "More than a year ago, the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled that the EU ban on imports of U.S. beef raised with hormones was not based on scientific evidence and was therefore a violation of WTO rules--rules the EU itself played a key role in establishing. Yet the EU has refused to lift the ban. Why? We are told that U.S. beef, although treated with hormones approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and recognized as safe by international scientists, could still perhaps be dangerous, that Europeans want only hormone-free beef, and do not want to be forced to eat "hormone beef." Is this really the issue? Is the debate about health, about trade, about consumer choice, or all three? We believe that it is about trade-that neither health nor consumer choice are at issue. It is in all our interests to establish the facts. Let's start with the health issue--the safety of hormone-treated beef. "First of all, there is really no such thing as "hormone-free beef." Hormones occur naturally in all plants and animals. The egg you buy in the supermarket has about as much estradiol, a naturally occurring hormone, as six kilograms of beef from a steer raised using the same hormone. Half a liter of milk contains about nine times as much estradiol as a 250-gram steak from a hormone-treated steer. Even among cattle, hormone levels vary widely. A bull has a much higher hormone level than a steer, even a steer raised using hormones. "Thus, much European beef, which comes from bulls, may actually contain higher levels of hormones than American beef, which comes predominantly from steers. Regardless of whether the beef on your plate is from an animal raised using hormones or not, the amount of hormones it contains is insignificant compared to what your own body produces. For instance, the average man produces 15,000 times more estradiol daily than the amount contained in 500 grams of beef from a steer treated with hormones. "Next, there is abundant evidence to prove "that the hormones used in the U.S. are safe. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been researching and monitoring the effects of these hormones since the 1950s. Study after study, test after test has shown that there is no essential difference between beef from animals raised using hormones and those raised without. No scientific study has ever found adverse effects from the use of these hormones as they are used in the United States. European scientific advisory committees confirmed the safety of these hormones in the 1980s. International scientific bodies including the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have confirmed these assessments. "In fact, three of these hormones are approved for veterinary use in the EU as well. EU risk assessment tests now underway--ordered only after the WTO decision, almost ten years after the original ban--are simply repeating work already done, which has clearly answered the safety question. "Third, we do believe in consumer choice. Contrary to what you may read elsewhere on the editorial page, the U.S. does not want to force anyone to eat U.S. beef. That is why we have proposed a labeling approach to resolve this dispute. All beef imported from the U.S. would be labeled with pride as U.S. beef. You may choose yourself whether or not to try it. "Finally, a word on the trade issue. As a trading nation and one of the world's most open economies, the Netherlands and its people have a large stake in the soundness of the international trade system. The Netherlands exports 2.8 billion guilders worth of agricultural products to the U.S. alone. Dutch farmers and manufacturers depend for their welfare on a trading system that prevents countries from raising barriers to trade based on political sensitivities or "consumer preference" rather than sound science. (Suppose, for example, that Americans banned Dutch tulip bulbs or Heineken beer on the grounds that U.S. consumers thought that these products might be health hazards.) "This is not a matter of bowing to U.S. bullying, but of respecting the rules we all worked to establish in the last round of global trade negotiations. As noted above, the WTO's dispute settlement panel and appeal body considered the EU arguments, but found that the ban on beef from animals treated with hormones was not supported by the scientific evidence, and that the ban therefore violated WTO rules. The U.S. has already lost four cases before the WTO. In two cases, we negotiated a solution with our trading partners, in the other two, we changed our law to make it compatible with WTO obligations. Complying with these rulings was not politically popular, but we complied. It is in the interests of the Dutch to ensure that the EU does the same, both to reinforce the WTO and to avoid a potentially damaging trade war. The rational solution is to open EU markets again to U.S. beef, clearly labeled as such, and let each consumer decide." |
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