THAILAND: The Bangkok Post-Apr 23
At a meeting earlier this month in Washington, the US government asked its Thai counterparts to do something they have never done and should not do. In brief, the US delegation to bilateral trade talks asked Thailand to legalize a drug and put it in animal feed. The drug, ractopamine, is banned in 160 countries including Thailand. The back story to this disappointing US chicanery is that if Thailand legalizes and allows Thai farmers to use ractopamine, Washington will then demand the end of the Thai ban on US pork.
Ractopamine is meant to be added to commercial cattle and swine feed shortly before the animals are slaughtered. It promotes leanness in the animals’ meat, making them more valuable at the slaughterhouse and in the market. There are several medical problems with this. First and foremost, ractopamine has never been properly tested on humans. In animals, it is known to cause birth defects, disability, death and more. In humans, it is certain that the drug causes increased heart rates.
Ractopamine is used throughout all three countries of North America. In addition, however, two dozen other countries including Japan and South Korea agree that it is safe for human consumption. Boiled down, the argument in these countries is that limited tests have not shown severe harm to humans. Because it has not been proved harmful, ractopamine is legal — and should be legal elsewhere.
Ractopamine is produced in North America by a subsidiary of the US-based drug giant Eli Lilly and Co. Used for cattle, it is called Optaflexx. The additive produced for pigs is marketed as Paylean. Thailand and 159 other countries hold that the additive should be banned since there is no proof that it is harmless. For Thailand, the key problem is pigs.
The US pork industry’s slogan seems to be “let them eat drugs”. That’s a big problem, but hardly as troubling as the support the US government lends to Big Pharma. Strong support for farmers is one thing. It is quite another to not only justify but make demands over an additive known to cause problems and known to produce unpleasant side effects. When it should be considering how it found itself opposed by 160 nations, the United States instead decided to ignore available science and strong public opposition.
Of course, it’s hardly the first time the US has found itself in this position. Take cigarettes. The extremely strong if odious US position is that since cigarettes are not illegal, US companies should be given every trade benefit possible to export to Thailand. Trade officials who have battled US negotiators over this specific issue have come away amazed at how the US actually encourages cigarette sales — but only to foreign countries, not America.
Agricultural chemicals are another area where onerous pressure comes from America. To be fair, the US pushes amazingly harmful products such as paraquat on all countries equally. But in this case, it was a Thai delegation coming under the US insistence to not just legalize ractopamine but to encourage Thai livestock farmers to use it — and all of this campaign is designed to lift the Thai ban on US pork.
Fair trade is a difficult subject between and among governments. Tens of thousands of individual products are involved. Local issues and cultures always intrude — Americans want proof that ractopamine is harmful, while Thais want proof that it isn’t. Then there are national lobbies. The operators of the large and profitable Thai swine farms are thrilled not to have US competition, and now have become a strong and powerful voice in Thai trade policy.
In this case, Thailand is right and America is wrong. Ractopamine in all its forms is undesirable and causes unnecessary cruelty to animals and risk to humans. Thailand must keep the ban on this additive unless and until additional medical evidence proves its safety.
(First published in Bangkok Post – https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/1450667/a-swinish-proposal)
