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After having waged a many-years-long battle around the Globe against the toxic vet drug zilpaterol hydrochloride at both the Codex Alimentarius Commission and committee levels (2016, 2018, 2021, 2022), the National Health Federation (NHF) finally reached the end of the road today when over NHF’s and many Codex member states’ objections, the Commission voted 88-49, with 11 abstentions, in favor of adopting the toxic-drug standard. It took all of Tuesday afternoon, at the FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy, to reach a conclusion.
Remember that zilpaterol is Merck's special steroid-like veterinary drug for cattle, pigs, and poultry, which unnaturally pushes them to make more muscle and less fat. It harms the animals who get it, and it harms the humans who then eat them. There is no therapeutic benefit whatsoever to the poor animals, only financial benefit to the vet-drug companies and ranchers.
And, yet, intense arguments were made by the zilpaterol proponents at this meeting when they pleaded with the Committee to push the Codex standard from Step 7 up to the final Step 8 in the 8-step approval process at Codex just so that Merck and others could make more dollars around the World. With such passion, you would have thought they were trying to save lives; but, no, it was only about the money.
Why is the zilpaterol standard at Codex so important? Once this zilpaterol Codex standard is adopted, then zilpaterol can flood the World markets unobstructed. Merck could then force the European Union, Russia, China, Switzerland, Norway, and all those other countries who voted against it to open their markets to zilpaterol-tainted meat as well. And Merck would only be richer. |
