American and Canadian government food safety authorities say they will work together to prevent a banned hog medication from entering the Canadian food system.
“We’re comfortable with a legitimate process for testing product to ensure there are no residues of carbadox in U.S. pork that would be entering Canada,” said Neil Dierks, chief executive officer of the U.S. National Pork Producer Council.
Carbadox is an antibiotic used to treat hogs. In 2001, Health Canada prohibited its sale in Canada because the drug was determined to be carcinogenic. It continues to be used in U.S. pork production.
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Health Canada issued a communiqué this past July indicating it might ban all products found to have residues of carbadox.
Dierks said co-operation between the two governments is the best way to come to a workable solution for both sides.
“We think (testing) is a sane and rational approach to this issue.”
Martin Rice, executive director of the Canada Pork Council, said the pork industries on both sides of the border prefer to resolve the issue through a monitoring system rather than Health Canada-imposed regulatory changes that could impede trade.
“(Regulatory changes) would have made it unattractive to continue to export to Canada, and we’d probably face some significant trade tensions as a result of that,” he said.
In a meeting held in early October, U.S. and Canadian pork industry and food safety government officials agreed to ask the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to work out a monitoring system to screen for carbadox residue in meat imported to Canada.
Health Canada will review the monitoring results.
“If Health Canada is satisfied with that monitoring program and that it adequately addresses our concerns, then we would go with that monitoring program,” said Paul Duchesne, a media relations officer with the department.
Duchesne said Health Canada will continue to prepare a regulatory amendment with regard to carbadox, “but if the monitoring program takes care of our concerns, that will be a way to go.”
The CFIA is waiting to hear from U.S. authorities.
“We have asked them to come back to us with an acceptable sampling plan, and the ball is in their court at this point,” said CFIA media relations officer Alain Charette.
