Hormonal meat

The Beef Hormone Dispute is one of the two most intractable transatlantic agricultural disputes since the establishment of the World Trade Organization, the other being the Banana War.

In the 1990s, in the midst of the mad cow disease crisis, the European Union banned the import of meat that contained artificial beef hormones. WTO rules permit such bans, but only where a signatory presents valid scientific evidence that the ban is a health and safety measure. Canada and the United States opposed this ban, taking the EU to the WTO Dispute Settlement Body. In 1997, the WTO ruled against the EU. The EU appealed the ruling.

History
The EU ban and its background
The hormones banned by the EU in cattle farming were estradiol, progesterone, testosterone, melengesterol acetate, trenbolone acetate, and zeranol. Of these, the first three are naturally produced in humans and animals, and also occur in a wide range of foods, whereas the second three are synthetic. The EU did not impose an absolute ban. Under veterinary supervision, cattle famers were permitted to administer the natural hormones for therapuetical and cost-reduction purposes, such as synchronising the oestrus cycles of dairy cows. All of these six hormones were licensed for use in the U.S. and in Canada.

Under the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, signatories are permitted to impose restrictions on health and safety grounds subject to scientific analysis. The heart of the Beef Hormone Dispute was the fact that all risk analysis is statisical in nature, and thus unable to determine with certainty the absence of health risks, and consequent disagreement between the U.S. and Canada on the one hand, who believed that a broad scientific consensus existed that beef produced with the use of hormones was safe, and the EU on the other, which asserted that it was not safe.

WTO panel decisions and E.U. appeal

U.S./Canadian measures taken after May 1999

E.U. claims to new scientific evidence in in 2004

Effects upon policy in the E.U.

Effects upon public opinion in the U.S. and Canada
One of the effects of the Beef Hormone Dispute in the U.S. was to awaken the public's interest in the issue. This interest was not wholly unsympathetic to the E.U.. In 1989, for example, the Consumer Federation of America and the Center for Science in the Public Interest both pressed for an adoption of a ban within the U.S. similar to that within the E.U..

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