Pork industry fears US antibiotics dispute
17 July 2006CANADA - A government proposal to ban imported pork treated with the antibiotic carbadox could cause the United States to retaliate, triggering a trade dispute, an industry official said on Friday.
"The worry is that the procedure that Health Canada uses to ban it could make it problematic for U.S. pork exporters into Canada," Canadian Pork Council executive director Martin Rice said.
"We could assume there would be strong U.S. reciprocation. If the Canadian action is seen as being in excess of what's needed to address the risk, then the U.S. could contemplate its own trade actions against Canada, and we still have a major surplus in pork going from Canada into the U.S."
Health Canada said in a 2001 release ordering an end to carbadox sales that its scientists had concluded that continued sale of the antibiotic "cannot be justified in light of the potential for misuse and unintentional contamination of other products."
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Source: Reuters
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