Analyzing the Trade Dispute of Hormone-treated Beef
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As technology progresses, many issues arise about ethics, between progress and the repercussions society faces from that progress. In 1989, a trade conflict arose, that not only affected the economies of the world, but also arose health issues, that were neglected by the law as well as the World Trade Organization. The trade conflict that I am referring to is Europe’s ban of hormone-treated beef and the World Trade Organization ruling of this being in violation of its international obligations (Earth Justice 1997).
The original trade agreement was that hormone-treated beef was safe and therefore, allowing trade of this product. Then the European Union banned all trading of this type of beef internally throughout Europe as well as throughout the world. The United States and Canada mounted a challenge against this restriction, since 90% of all beef that is produced in the US uses a combination of up to six growth hormones. The ban of this type of beef has cost the US approximately five million dollars annually. (Birchard 1999)
The United States felt that banning hormone treated beef was unfair, since there was no scientific proof that it was a danger to a person’s health. So the US went to the WTO to eliminate this ban on an export that the US values. So the World Trade Organization imposed a committee to test whether the beef was harmful or not to the consumers, which they found no solid evidence that the beef caused any harm (Seidman 2000). Therefore WTO ruled in favor of the US that Europe’s ban was unfair international trade policy. Europe than appealed the WTO decision. Then a study released by the European Union on May 1st, 1999 stated that the six growth hormones in the US cattle pose health threats of differing severity, putting children at the highest risk. According to the European Union the worst hormone, is oestradiol-17B, a natural hormone, but some of the lesser dangerous hormones consist of testosterone, progesterone, zeranol, trenbolone, and meglangestrol acetate. (Birchard 1999) So Europe states that by imposing this ban they were actually trying to protect their country by imposing food safety standards.
A substantial percentage of the work on the ethics of genetically modified food has primarily centralized on its potentially nocuous effects on human health and on the rights to label
Swan, S.H., J.W. Overstreet, C. Brazil, and N.E. Skakkebaek. "Growth Hormones Fed to Beef Cattle Damage Human Health." Growth Hormones Fed to Beef Cattle Damage Human Health. N.p., May 2007. Web. 09 Oct. 2013. .
Within the United State there is only one set of standards to grade beef and beef products being distributed interstate. The USDA put these standards in place after the Wholesome Meat Act of 1967 which states that, “USDA has authority to control movement of unfit meat and meat products and to require poultry products in interstate and foreign commerce to meet Federal inspection standards.” There are seven standards in place for commercial beef sale in the United States; they are on a sliding scale. Excellent quality beef is labeled as prime, which has a high degree of marbling or fat throughout the back, loin, ribs, and rump. Prime beef is going to be mainly used in steakhouses and restaurants throughout the nation. The quality of this particular type of beef is superior to the next standard of beef, choice...
Food Inc. mentions, “In the 1970s, the top five beef-packers controlled only about 25% of the market. Today, the top four control more than 80% of the market.” The main point during this section is trying to get across is that big corporations care mostly about making money and that to them, quantity above quality. From a political standpoint, many people like presidents of these major companies also work for the FDA and the USDA, allowing them to have a say on regulations.
Most of us do not think twice about the foods we pick up from the supermarket. Many Americans have a preconceived belief that the food being sold to us is safe, and withholds the highest standard of quality. Certainly, compared to many places in the world, this is true. But is the United States sincerely trying to carry out these standards, or have we begun to see a reverse in the health and safety of our food- and more explicitly in our meat? Jonathan Foer, author of “Eating Animals” argues for reform within the food industry- not only for the humane treatment of animals but moreover for our own health. Although Foer exposes the ills within the food industries in order to persuade readers to change their diets for the better, his “vegetarianism or die” assessment may be too extreme for most Americans. The true ills do not start with the meat, but with industrialized production of it through methods practiced by factory farming.
In Alastair Norcross’ paper, “Puppies, Pigs, and People: Eating Meat and Marginal Cases” he describes a situation in which a man, Fred, has lost his ability to enjoy the gustatory pleasure of chocolate due to a car accident. However, it is known that puppies under duress produce cocoamone, the hormone Fred needs in order to enjoy chocolate again. Since no one is in the cocoamone business, Fred sets up twenty six puppy cages, and mutilates them resulting in cocoamone production in the puppy’s brains. Each week he slaughters a dog and consumes the cocoamone. When he is caught, he explains to the judge and jury that his actions are no different from factory farming because he is torturing and killing puppies for gustatory pleasure similar to how factory farms torture and kill cows, chickens, etc. for other people’s gustatory pleasure. You, the reader are meant to think that this is unacceptable, and therefore, denounce factory farming. Although there are many valid objections to this argument, I am in agreement with Norcross and shall be supporting him in this paper. I think the two most practical objections are that (1) most consumers don’t know how the animals are treated whereas Fred clearly does, and (2) if Fred stops enjoying chocolate, no puppies will be tortured, but if a person becomes a vegetarian, no animals will be saved due to the small impact of one consumer. I shall explain the reasoning behind these objections and then present sound responses in line with Norcross’ thinking, thereby refuting the objections.
The beef hormone dispute represents a new type of ideologically-based trade dispute that is becoming more and more common . Hormone treated beef was first banned in 1989 by the European Community, and in 1995, the beef hormone case was one of the first cases brought to the newly formed World Trade Organisation (WTO). The US claimed that the ban on hormone treated beef was inconsistent with the new Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (the SPS agreement), negotiated as part of the Uruguay Trade Round. This agreement established rules governing food safety regulations, stating that such regulations must be supported by scientific risk assessment . A WTO dispute panel ruled in favour of the United States, saying that the EU’s use of the precautionary principle (which justified the ban on the ground of scientific uncertainty about the health effects of hormones ) could not override the terms of the SPS agreement. The EU did not alter its regulations, prompting the United States to instigate tariffs against $116.8 million of European goods, mostly luxury items from France, Germany and Italy, countries that the US saw as the strongest supporters of the ban . These tariffs remained in place for years as attempts to resolve the dispute through bilateral negotiation repeatedly...
Today it seems that if it is white and fatty then it is good enough, no matter how it is made or where it comes from. According Mike Ewall, affiliated with the United States Justice Network, present day cows are now given the recombinant...
... government inspection of meat products. The Pure Food and Drug act also passed after the Meat inspection Act of 1906. The packers denied the charges and opposed the bills to no avail. These bills protected the publics right to safe sanitary meat.
You may not know it, but in the United States GM foods are quite prevalent. Approximately 65% of foods in the U.S. contain some variation of genetically altered ingredients (Ulrich 9). And of that portion, 89% of soybeans and 61% of corn is transgenic (Powell 529). This technology came to prominence in the 1990’s and since then has been a subject of much controversy. Proponents preach the undeniable health and growing benefits of this new development. Critics rail against biotech companies for the ambiguous safety status and ethical grounds of altering natural plant growth. The center stage for this conflict is Europe. While generally similar to the U.S., this region of the world is much more outwardly suspicious and hostile towards crop alterations.
An abundance of Americans have no idea that most of the food that they consume are either processed or altered in one way or another. “Almost all beef cattle entering feedlots in the United States are given hormone implants to promote faster growth. The first product used for this purpose is DES (diethylstilbestrol) it was approved for use in beef cattle in 1954. An estimated two-thirds of the nation's beef cattle were treated with DES in 1956. (Swan, Liu, Overstreet, Brazil, and Skakkebaek)” Many people enjoy the various meats that comes from a cow, but that would probably change if the consumers knew that cattle is one of the most processed meat source in the market today because of the synthetic hormones that the cows are given. “ The three synthetic hormones are the estrogen compound zeranol, the androgen trenbolone acetate, and progestin melengestrol acetate. (Swan, Liu, Overstreet, B...
Sherlock, Richard. "Bioethics." Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics. Ed. Carl Mitcham. Vol. 1. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 193-200. Student Resources in Context. Web. 24 Mar. 2014. source 23
The moral responsibilities of America's agricultural industry is an issue that posess no current solution. The only current solutions are the creation of cheap synthetic meat or a change of how Americans veiw animal morality. Synthetic meat only appears as a distant solution on the horizon. The only current solution to animal morality is a change in how we veiw animals. They posess no ablilty to be moral so it falls upon humans as the intellegant race to be humane to animals and treat them with kindeness we bestow upon other humans.
Tavani, H. T. (2007). Ethics and technology. Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons Inc. (Ethical theories in the introduction)
Food manufacturers use chemical in food processing because of huge economical profit. It is always cheaper to make low quality food rather than healthy food. Food manufacturers’ objectives are to find cheap methods to gain higher profit. The application of techniques such as pasteurization, fermenting and pickling are often use in food companies to prevent food from spoiling ahead of time. Their intention is to stock the food for a long period of time without worrying about early deterioration that can lead to major financial loss. Food companies use antibiotics in chicken, and steroids in cow to stimulate their growth. In an experiment, it was shown that injection of growth hormone in cow improves and stimulates milk production (Baldwin, 1995). Companies’...