Urge the FDA to Protect Farmed Animals and Consumers by Banning Ractopamine

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has consistently ignored public concern over ractopamine – a controversial drug used to rapidly grow muscle in cows, pigs, and turkeys. The drug causes animals’ bodies to suffer tremors, lesions, and deterioration, and it also harms the environment and elevates the heart rate of people who consume meat from cows, pigs or turkeys given the drug.

Food Animal Concerns Trust, the Animal Legal Defense Fund, Center for Biological Diversity, and Center for Food Safety 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 our lawsuit, the FDA agreed — after years of foot-dragging — to provide a response to our rulemaking petition by February 28.

The FDA finally replied, and they denied our petitions. In doing so, the federal Agency failed in their responsibility to ensure the safety of humans, animals, and the environment.

But we are not giving up! We need your help to fight for farmed animals. We are asking the FDA to reconsider their denial of our requests to prohibit the use of ractopamine in food animals.

Sign the petition below to show you agree that the US should join at least 168 countries, including China, Russia, and all countries in the European Union, to ban or restrict ractopamine in meat production.   

Petition Text

I care about the safety of drugs given to animals, both for the animals themselves and for the safety of any animal products. The pig, turkey, and cow drug ractopamine provides no benefit to animals and is used solely to promote growth. But ractopamine does create significant risks to animal health and to consumers consuming meat from animals that have been fed the drug. 

Animals given beta-agonists such as ractopamine face an increased likelihood of experiencing painful injury, extreme stress, and increased death. Evidence, including that contained within the FDA’s own files, also links ractopamine to human heart and respiratory issues in meat consumers and farmworkers, increased risk of pathogen contagion, and intensified environmental pollution through seepage and runoff to ground and surface waters.

Ractopamine is banned or restricted in meat production in at least 160 countries, including China and all countries in the European Union. 

I am calling on the FDA to prohibit the use of ractopamine in farmed animals.

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