Letter: No need for beef hormones

Sir: Katharine Butler ("Why the mafia is into your beef", 19 March) focuses on the black market in growth-promoting hormones. However, her analysis of the existence of the illegal trade in growth hormones misses the point as far as the ban on their use in the EU is concerned.

The reason for which the ban must be maintained and the black market stamped out cannot be understood in terms of scientific opinion alone. The use of these substances in meat has caused a marked drop in consumer confidence in the market which will not be tackled by legalising the use of growth promoters. Consumer objections stem both from legitimate public health concerns, and from the entirely accurate perception that in an EU which was once a byword for agricultural over-production, there is no need to use these substances anyway.

Since the mid-1980s, I have consistently argued that where animal pharmaceuticals are used for purposes other than prophylactic or therapeutic, they should be subject to more than the customary tests for animal pharmaceuticals, those of safety, quality and efficacy. I have argued that a fourth test should be required: a socio-environmental impact assessment.

The Government would do better to support the introduction of such a test rather than to claim, in the teeth of clear consumer opposition, that we should eat meat that has been artificially boosted by hormones and other chemical compounds because they meet tests designed for quite different purposes.

Ken Collins MEP

(Strathclyde East, Lab)

Brussels

The writer is Committee Chairman and rapporteur on hormones in meat, European Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.