The review of the 21st version of the Esophageal Law focuses on clenbuterol

Although there have been cases of mad cow disease in the United States, the Department of Health has determined, based on preliminary data, that these cases are isolated incidents and have not entered the food chain. Therefore, the Legislative Yuan's Health and Environment Committee continued to review the "Draft Amendment to the Food Sanitation Management Act" today, the 26th. Together with the Executive Yuan's proposal, there are a total of 21 versions. The ruling and opposition parties have decided to focus on ractopamine through consultation. The committee will give priority to voting on the provisions related to the conditional opening of ractopamine to imported meat products.

The Executive Yuan has proposed a 16-word policy direction for the lean meat stimulant ractopamine: "safety allowed, separation of cattle and pigs, mandatory labeling, and exclusion of offal." Therefore, the Executive Yuan version proposes conditional opening, setting a safe residual amount of ractopamine, and requiring meat products to be labeled with their place of origin, allowing the public to choose whether to eat beef containing ractopamine.

This morning, the Health and Environment Committee asked all the proposal members to explain their proposals first. Taiwan Solidarity Union legislator Lin Shijia said that all the amendments proposed by the members, including the ruling party legislators, require zero detection of clenbuterol, which means refusing to eat beef containing clenbuterol. She called for the executive power not to override the legislative power and the Health and Environment Committee should submit a "zero detection" version.

Democratic Progressive Party legislator Guan Bi-ling said that the recurrence of mad cow disease in the United States shows that the United States' ability to raise cattle is not trustworthy. She emphasized that the problem of ractopamine is exactly the same, and that only 30% of all meat in the United States contains ractopamine. She questioned why the Ma government wanted to increase sales for American meat traders while ignoring the health of the Taiwanese people.

DPP legislators including Chen Ting-fei have called on the government to impose a complete ban on the import of American beef and remove American beef from the market based on high standards before the pathology results of mad cow disease-infected cows are released.

Compared with the opposition legislators' loud voices, Kuomintang legislators Yang Lihuan, Luo Shulei and Huang Zhaoshun, who also proposed a bill demanding zero detection of clenbuterol, were absent in the morning to explain the proposal.