EU to boost hormone-free imports of U.S. beef

<br>BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) _ European Union experts recommended lifting stringent testing for U.S. imports of hormone-free beef products Wednesday, saying recent tests had found no traces of hormones or

Wednesday, February 20th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) _ European Union experts recommended lifting stringent testing for U.S. imports of hormone-free beef products Wednesday, saying recent tests had found no traces of hormones or other banned substances.

In a statement the EU said that U.S. authorities had taken enough precautions and guarantees to ensure that hormones were not present in non-hormone treated beef exports to the 15-nation bloc.

Experts recommended that the EU and U.S. authorities continue to work under a 1999 program promoting U.S. beef production without the use of growth hormones.

Currently, about 20 percent of all U.S. hormone-free beef imports are tested, but that will be scrapped and replaced by random testing, officials said.

The EU upgrade the system from random testing in 1999 after it found traces of growth hormones in beef labeled hormone-free.

The EU has had a long-running dispute with Washington over an EU ban on hormone-treated beef, which the EU claims could potentially pose a health risk.

The United States won a challenge to the ban at the World Trade Organization, which authorized it to apply sanctions to make up for some $120 million a year in lost beef sales.

The EU has said its import ban has been justified by partial results from 17 ongoing scientific studies on hormone-treated beef.