ACTION ALERT: FDA Allows This Dangerous Drug in Your Meat
- Center for Food Safety
- May 14
- 2 min read
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has failed us. Over the last decade, the agency has repeatedly ignored both public concern urging them to immediately reduce or eliminate allowable levels of ractopamine, an unnecessary drug used only to rapidly grow muscle in farmed animals. Center for Food Safety, along with our partners Animal Legal Defense Fund, Center for Biological Diversity, and Food Animal Concerns Trust recently submitted a scathing legal petition urging the FDA to reconsider its denial of our previous requests to reduce or eliminate the allowable levels of ractopamine in farmed animals.
And now we need your help to overwhelm FDA with comments in support of our petition and force them to act to stop this dangerous drug.
Ractopamine is used to boost muscle growth rates in farmed animals like cows, pigs, and turkeys. However, it has a multitude of side effects which cause great harm. Because of these awful side effects, it is generally administered during the animal’s final weeks of life. Animals given ractopamine are more likely to experience painful injury, inhumane treatment, and extreme stress. Other side effects include:
Causing animals to suffer tremors, lesions, broken limbs, and painful bodily deterioration.
Elevating heart rates in humans who consume contaminated meat.
Polluting waterways and harms aquatic wildlife.
Creating dangerous conditions for farmworkers.
Although the drug is commonly used in the U.S. on pigs and cows in industrial factory farms, its use is already restricted or banned in 168 countries, including China, Russia, and all countries in the European Union. Even worse, the FDA allows ractopamine residue levels in meat that exceed those adopted by the United Nation’s own food standards body, the Codex Alimentarius Commission.
As Center for Food Safety's co-executive director Sylvia Wu states: "The evidence before FDA is clear: Ractopamine is not safe for animals, our farmworkers, or consumers. The time has come to ban this dangerous drug from our food system.”
We’ve been hard at work on this issue for over a decade. Center for Food Safety and our partners filed a lawsuit last March to require the FDA to respond to our 2012 and 2020 rulemaking petitions, which urged the agency to immediately reduce or eliminate allowable levels of ractopamine in farmed animals. Following this lawsuit, the FDA finally agreed to provide a response.
In February, the FDA replied and denied our petitions. In doing so, the federal agency failed in their responsibility to ensure the safety of humans, animals, and the environment.
We won’t give up that easily. That’s why we need your help today to fight for farmed animals. Send a message to FDA today in support of our petition?
CFS is at the forefront of protecting our food system from dangerous chemicals. Your support strengthens our legal and scientific advocacy work to keep our food supply safe for all.
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