000208 Swiss Report Illegal Hormone In US Beef

Washington - The United States is still trying to determine the source of an illegal hormone that Swiss government officials found in a shipment of US beef, an Agriculture Department aide said on Wednesday.

Beth Gaston, a spokeswoman for the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), said the Swiss government found traces of diethylstilbestrol (DES), a carcinogen, in two samples of US beef in July 1999.

“This is the subject of a joint FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) and FSIS investigation,” Gaston said. “We have no evidence that this is anything other than an aberration.” The finding, reported on Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal, has raised questions about the effectiveness of the Agriculture Department's testing for illegal hormones.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington, DC- based nutrition and food safety advocacy group, has urged that the results of government's investigation be turned over to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution.

The FDA banned the use of DES as a growth promoter in food-producing animals in 1979. FSIS stopped regularly testing for DES in its domestic meat programs in 1991 to focus its resources in problem areas, Gaston said.

However, the agency was planning to do a spot check for DES this year as part of a regular rotation of testing for residues that are considered less of a problem, she said.

On the international front, FSIS tests for DES in its “additional residue testing program” for the European Union (EU) and has found no residues. Switzerland is not a member of the EU.

In its article, the Wall Street Journal said the Swiss government had barred shipments of beef from two US companies as a result of the DES discovery.

Sherlyn Manson, a spokeswoman for Farmland National Beef Packing Co., one of the firms, said the company was investigating whether the beef might have come from its plant in Liberal, Kansas.

“We don't know that. That is what's being alleged. We have been cooperating with USDA. They reviewed our records 6 months ago,” Manson said. Farmland National Beef does not export beef to Switzerland or the EU, Manson said. But it does sell beef to Bruss Co. of Chicago, the other firm mentioned in the article and a subsidiary of IBP Inc., the largest US beefpacker. Gary Mickelson, a spokesman for IBP, said neither the Swiss nor US government has notified Bruss of any problems with product shipped to Switzerland last summer.

Bruss has “heard and seen secondhand information” alleging some problem, but company records show “none of the beef in question came from an IBP plant,” Mickelson said.

Both Mickelson and Manson said they would not speculate on how DES might have showed up in the shipments. “DES has been banned for 20 years, so this is an extremely unusual situation,” Mickelson said. Farmland National Beef also considers the finding an aberration.

“We can't imagine anybody (in the cattle market) would be using that,” Manson said.

CSPI executive director Michael Jacobson called the discovery “distressing.”

“Similar contamination could be present in beef consumed by Americans. US consumers need immediate assurance that the beef they consume does not contain that drug,” he said.

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