Beef Hormones and the European Community

1. Beef Hormones and the European Community

2. Why Use Hormones? A hormone-treated animal gains weight more rapidly, producing a more flavorful and tender product. The use of hormones provides several benefits in beef production

3. By reaching market weight sooner, there is a reduction in the cost of beef production. Thus, consumers are provided with a higher quality of meat at lower prices.

4. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been thoroughly researching the effects of growth hormones since the 1950s. FDA and other scientific experts have found that there is essentially no difference between beef from animals raised using hormones and those raised without their use.

5. Each implant contains a specific, legally authorized dosage of the hormone. The implant itself is inserted into the ear, which is discarded at slaughter and does not enter the human food chain. With an implant, the hormone is released into the bloodstream very slowly, so that the concentration of the hormone remains relatively constant and very low.

6. Beef from a bull (which is not castrated and to which hormones have not been administered) contains testosterone levels over ten times higher than the amount in beef from a steer (which is castrated) that has received hormones for growth promotion.

7. Since the European beef market is predominantly bull-sourced, while American meat is steer-sourced, American hormone-treated beef generally contains lower levels of hormones than most European beef.

8. Consumer lobbyist groups were able to successfully influence the European Parliament to enact regulations in the 1980s.

9. The U.S. Government made a complaint to the World Trade Organization (WTO) about the EU's hormone ban in 1996.

10. The complaint was upheld because the EU was said to have failed to justify its ban on the basis of adequate scientific evidence.

11. Europe refused to comply with the ruling and the US has been applying punitive tariffs to some European goods including, for example, French Roquefort cheese.

12. The Banana Trade War This dispute began with the creation of the European Union's single market in 1993. The EU created erected new barriers to bananas exported from Latin America and marketed by U.S. companies.

13. This policy took export opportunities away from U.S. companies and gave them to EU companies.

14. The United States and five other Latin America countries filed a case against the EU banana constraints in 1997. In view of the EU's continued noncompliance with the original findings, the WTO authorized the U.S. to impose retaliatory sanctions on $191 million of EU exports.

15. This dispute was ultimately resolved in 2001 when EU expanded its licensing agreement to include non-European companies

16. GMOs and Europe

17. In Europe all foods and feed produced from GMOs, including products that no longer contain detectable traces of GMOs must be labeled.