Petition: Urge FDA to Protect Farmed Animals and Consumers by Banning Ractopamine

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has ignored public concern over ractopamine, a controversial drug used to rapidly grow muscle in cows, pigs, and turkeys that also causes animals’ bodies to suffer tremors, lesions, and deterioration, elevates meat consumers’ heart rates, and harms the environment.      

The Animal Legal Defense Fund, Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Food Safety, and Food Animal Concerns Trust 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 has finally agreed — after years of ignoring the clear evidence — to provide a response to our rulemaking petition by February 28. 

Sign the petition below to show you agree that the FDA should join at least 160 countries, including China and all countries in the European Union, to ban or restrict ractopamine in meat production.

Petition: 

As an animal advocate and a supporter of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, I care about the well-being of animals, consumers, and the environment.  

Ractopamine is banned or restricted in meat production in at least 160 countries, including China and all countries in the European Union. Nonetheless, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved ractopamine for use in cows, pigs, and turkeys raised for meat in the U.S. and continues to allow ractopamine residue levels in meat that exceed those adopted by the United Nations’ food standards body, the Codex Alimentarius Commission. 

The FDA’s approval for ractopamine relied primarily on safety studies conducted by the drugmaker itself.

Animals given beta-agonists such as ractopamine face increased likelihood of experiencing painful injury, inhumane treatment, and extreme stress. Evidence, including that contained within the FDA’s own files, also links ractopamine to human heart and respiratory issues in meat consumers and farm workers, increased risk of pathogen contagion, and intensified environmental pollution through seepage and runoff to ground and surface waters. Still, ractopamine usage has been estimated in 60–80 percent of all pigs raised for food in the U.S. 

I am calling on the FDA to reduce or restrict completely the use of ractopamine in farmed animals.