Taipei
health authorities seized over 300 kilograms of beef potentially containing a
banned drug Tuesday from a city importer accused of providing tainted beef to a
local restaurant chain.
The
officials raided Mayfull Foods in the city's Neihu district earlier in the day
and seized the beef.
A nationwide
recall of the questionable beef followed the discovery of the
leanness-enhancing drug zilpaterol in beef when Taoyuan county health
authorities checked an outlet of the Yuanshao restaurant chain in the northern
county.
Yuanshao is
a barbeque restaurant chain owned by Wowprime, a leading operator in Taiwan
with interests spanning hot pot stores, the high-end Wang Steak brand, and
Chamonix teppanyaki restaurants.
Wowprime
said it had recalled and returned all of the questionable beef sold at Yuanshao
stores nationwide, estimated at 203.4kg in total, to Mayfull by Oct. 26.
The Taipei
health officials said all the seized beef at the Mayfull warehouse will be
destroyed.
The beef
found in the Taoyuan store was part of batches totaling 361.25kg imported by
Mayfull from the United States in January, all of which was sold to Wowprime,
according to Chiu Hsiu-yi, head of the Food and Drug Division under Taipei's
Department of Health.
Wowprime
said the questionable beef was sold only at Yuanshao outlets.
The group
also said that only 33kg of the questionable beef had been sold since Sept. 2.
Taiwan only
allows the leanness-enhancing drug ractopamine in US beef with a cap of residue
levels at 10 parts per billion (ppb).
Zilpaterol
is more toxic than ractopamine and may not be easily metabolized by animals,
according to the health department, but it has been approved by the United
States Food and Drug Administration as a supplement for cattle.
In the
latest case, the residue level found in the tainted beef was a marginal 0.5 ppb
and should pose only a low hazard to human health, the department said.
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