Helena Bottemiller of Food Safety News wrote a report which claimed that ractopamine had "sickened or killed more than 218,000 pigs as of March 2011, more than any other animal drug on the market" since its approval for pigs in 1999 in the US. This led to the Council of Agriculture (COA), stating that it had not found evidence in the US to back up the claim. Ractopamine, is a drug used as a feed additive to promote lean meat in pigs and cattle, and the drug is permitted in about 20 countries globally, including the US. According to statistics from the US Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), since ractopamine was first used in the US in 2000, there has been no increase in the death rate of pigs, the COA said.
These figures show pig mortality rate in the US, according to the COA:
These figures show pig mortality rate in the US, according to the COA:
- 0.3 percent in 1998
- 0.28 percent in 1999
- 0.29 percent in both 2000 and 2001
- 2002-2008 the rate was between 0.22 and 0.2 percent
- 2010 it was 0.17 percent
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