OTTAWA (Staff) – Officially, the Canadian government continues to study the issue of whether the dairy growth hormone bovine somatotropin is safe for use.
It is one of the questions holding up a Health Canada decision on whether BST can be approved for sale.
Yet in July, a Canadian delegation at a United Nations meeting in Rome voted to have the international food regulation code include a statement that BST is safe and is not a health risk.
It was voted down on a motion from the European Union, which has banned its use for now, and the debate was postponed until 1997.
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Still, the apparent contradiction in the Canadian position incensed Liberal MP Wayne Easter, who has been fighting within his own government to keep BST off veterinary product shelves.
He sent a letter to health minister Diane Marleau last month, asking for an explanation. By last week, there had been no response from Marleau’s office.
Easter said in an interview that Canada’s position in Rome raises questions about whether Health Canada officials responsible for reviewing BST are predisposed to favor it.
He asked Marleau specifically about Sol Gunner, director general of the food directorate at Health Canada and the leader of the BST review team.
Supported introduction of drug
He was part of the July delegation which supported an American proposal to have the vote immediately to declare the drug safe.
Yet several weeks before, Gunner had told the Commons agriculture committee that the departmental review of the health of BST was “ongoing” and no decisions had been made.
“I wasn’t too happy to find out we seem to say one thing here before MPs and another thing when we go abroad,” said Easter.
