Tyson Foods controversial antibiotic free label

So it finally dawn upon the US Department of agriculture (USDA) that right at home front one of the country’s biggest chicken meat supplier; Tyson Foods has been lying to the public consumers by labelling their chicken products as ‘anti-biotic’ free. Seems to me it looks more like the case of the pot calling the kettle black. US and Europe has been shouting and crying wolf over China’s gross violation of food safety while at their own backyard their local food industries are flaunting with food safety likewise.

Tyson is contesting against the USDA ruling by claiming that the antibiotics were injected into eggs two or three days before the chicken hatch and thus it is rightfully of the company to label the chicken meat as antibiotic free. An interesting fact brought up by Tyson was that the majority of the poultry industries in the US are also practising the same thing. To further add insult to injury,
Tyson has filed a lawsuit against the USDA claiming that the agency had improperly change the meaning of the ‘raised without antibiotic’ thus causing the company to suffer loss due to the need to change the label as well as potential lost of customers due to the absence of ‘antibiotic free’ label.

Consumption of dairy products containing residue of growth hormones may cause early puberty and in some cases link to cancer. Proponents of animal inject growth hormones claim that residual growth hormones is too little to cause harm to humans whiles lab studies has shown that lung, colon and prostate cancer could be triggered by intake of residual growth hormones. To date no one knows the long term impact of hormone injection. There are studies that indicate hormone injection may affect the balance of other hormones in the body and thus causing cascading hormone chain effects which might be detrimental to long term health safety.

All these while and of recent we have heard and seen the press all over the world condemning China for it gross violation of food safety. As a serious critic of China food industries which are usually non compliance to safety standard, I have to admit though we have to draw a clear line with regards to China bashing.

It seems to me we have gone overboard simply for the fact that if we were to audit food products from other countries, chances are that the food safety authorities are likely to find the presence of other none Melamine type of dangerous health threatening substances in many of the so called non China manufactured food products. Take for instance; of recent the Singapore health authority has detected the presence of dangerously high peroxide content in Italian made “Alce Nero Organic Whole What Biscuits”.

Well so much so for food safety labels, one thing for sure, we cannot take food safety labels for granted as it is the case with Tyson.