• Taiwan lawmakers blockade parliament over US beef imports

    Wally Santana / AP

    Opposition party legislator Lee Chun-yi sleeps on a blockade of the legislature floor entrance in Taipei, Taiwan during a protest against the voting on a controversial beef import law on June 15, 2012.

    Opposition lawmakers have piled furniture at the entrance to Taiwan's parliament in a dispute over a controversial beef import law.

    The occupation of the chamber, which began on Monday, is aimed at preventing a vote which could pave the way for imports of US beef treated with ractopamine, an additive used in animal feed to promote lean meat. 

    -- The Associated Press and Agence France Presse contributed to this report

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    Sam Yeh / AFP - Getty Images

    Legislators from the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) and opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) display placards during a demonstration at the parliament in Taipei on June 15, 2012.

     

  • Mandy Cheng / AFP - Getty Images

    Workers carry US beef laden with ractopamine, a controversial additive used to promote lean meat, at a furnace in downtown Taipei on Monday. More than six tonnes of such beef imported by a local company that contained the drug allowed in the US but banned in Taiwan was destroyed. The move came as Taiwanese government is mulling a plan to lift a ban on ractopamine-treated US beef to facilitate stalled trade talks with the US, a key trading partner and arms supplier of the politically isolated island.

    Taiwan destroys US meat laden with growth-boosting drug

    According to this story on msnbc.com about a trade dispute betwen the US and countries which ban the use of ractopamine:

    Although few Americans outside of the livestock industry have ever heard of ractopamine, the feed additive is controversial. Fed to an estimated 60 to 80 percent of pigs in the United States, it has resulted in more reports of sickened or dead pigs than any other livestock drug on the market, an investigation of Food and Drug Administration records shows.

    Growing concern over sick animals in the nation's food supply sparked a California law banning the sale and slaughter of livestock unable to walk, but that law was struck down by the Supreme Court Monday. Meat producers had sued to overturn California’s ban, arguing that the state could not supercede federal rules on meat production. The court agreed.

    Since the drug was introduced, more than 218,000 pigs taking ractopamine were reported to have suffered adverse effects, as of March 2011, according to a review of FDA records. The drug has triggered more adverse reports in pigs than any other animal drug on the market. Pigs suffered from hyperactivity, trembling, broken limbs, inability to walk and death, according to FDA reports released under a Freedom of Information Act request. The FDA, however, says such data do not establish that the drug caused these effects.