A 5-year-old boy in Wuhan, capital city of Central China's Hubei province, was recently diagnosed with early sexual maturity because he accidentally took birth control pills.
"The boy's breasts grew dark and large," said Yao Hui, a doctor with the Wuhan Children's Hospital.
"My question is why his parents stored up so many contraceptive pills at home. "
The boy's parents made a living raising eels. In order to regulate the eels' reproduction and control the egg cycle, the couple feeds the eels contraceptive pills every day, and their son had somehow taken the pills.
"I have long warned that hormone abuse will cause problems in food safety," Yao said.
Amid the increasing number of early sexual maturity cases in recent years, questions have arisen about feed additive safety.
According to research by the Ministry of Agriculture in 2007, antibiotic abuse in pastoral farming is a severe problem.
China produces around 210,000 tons of antibiotics per year, 46.1 percent of which was fed to livestock via water or as additives to feed, said Zhang Rijun, a professor with China Agricultural University.
Farmers use antibiotics to prevent disease in their animals and accelerate their growth, he said.
In pig breeding, for example, the growth cycle can be shortened by 10 to 15 days if an antibiotic is used, which means a pig can grow from birth to more than 100 kg in just 150 days.
"A pig consumes some three kilograms of feed after they weigh more than 80 kg. So cutting the growth cycle by 10 days means saving 30 kg of feed and reducing the cost of raising the pig by 75 yuan ($11)," Zhang said. "And the money spent on the antibiotic for 150 days is only four yuan."
Similarly, when poultry is fed antibiotics, they mature in 49 days, one week earlier than without. And feeding fish and other aquatic animals contraceptives is "a typical practice," Zhang said.
"I am not sure what some farmers use to feed the animals, but if an ingredient hastens the growth rate of animals, we call it hormonal drugs," said Wang Huijun, head of the endocrinology department of the People's Hospital of Zhengzhou in Central China's Henan province.
"Consuming too much synthetic hormones from food could be a cause of the increasing cases of early sexual maturity and obesity," Wang said.
However, the government has explicitly forbidden hormone additives in food for nearly a decade.
The State Council stated clearly in the administrative regulations on feed additives, enacted in 2001, that feed additive producers are not allowed to add hormonal drugs into feedstock. Authorities at the county level or above are entitled to impose a 10,000- to 50,000-yuan fine on violators.
However, under loose supervision, illegal feed additives are available in almost every agricultural chemical shop, Zhang said.
"In the veterinary drugs' wholesale market in Zhengzhou, you can get all kinds of antibiotics, and the drugs are delivered to the remotest area via distributors," he said.
The Ministry of Agriculture carries out monitoring programs every year to check hormone levels and other illegal ingredients in livestock feed.
In the second half of 2009, the Ministry checked 251 batches of feed additives across China and more than 11 percent did not pass the test.
An official with the Ministry who did not want to be named said besides the monitoring program, they also make inspections upon people's reports.
According to the Ministry's website, three feed producers in Zhejiang and Henan provinces were closed recently for illegal business.
One of them had produced livestock feed that contained hormones, it said.
Source: China Daily(By Cheng Yingqi)
"The boy's breasts grew dark and large," said Yao Hui, a doctor with the Wuhan Children's Hospital.
"My question is why his parents stored up so many contraceptive pills at home. "
The boy's parents made a living raising eels. In order to regulate the eels' reproduction and control the egg cycle, the couple feeds the eels contraceptive pills every day, and their son had somehow taken the pills.
"I have long warned that hormone abuse will cause problems in food safety," Yao said.
Amid the increasing number of early sexual maturity cases in recent years, questions have arisen about feed additive safety.
According to research by the Ministry of Agriculture in 2007, antibiotic abuse in pastoral farming is a severe problem.
China produces around 210,000 tons of antibiotics per year, 46.1 percent of which was fed to livestock via water or as additives to feed, said Zhang Rijun, a professor with China Agricultural University.
Farmers use antibiotics to prevent disease in their animals and accelerate their growth, he said.
In pig breeding, for example, the growth cycle can be shortened by 10 to 15 days if an antibiotic is used, which means a pig can grow from birth to more than 100 kg in just 150 days.
"A pig consumes some three kilograms of feed after they weigh more than 80 kg. So cutting the growth cycle by 10 days means saving 30 kg of feed and reducing the cost of raising the pig by 75 yuan ($11)," Zhang said. "And the money spent on the antibiotic for 150 days is only four yuan."
Similarly, when poultry is fed antibiotics, they mature in 49 days, one week earlier than without. And feeding fish and other aquatic animals contraceptives is "a typical practice," Zhang said.
"I am not sure what some farmers use to feed the animals, but if an ingredient hastens the growth rate of animals, we call it hormonal drugs," said Wang Huijun, head of the endocrinology department of the People's Hospital of Zhengzhou in Central China's Henan province.
"Consuming too much synthetic hormones from food could be a cause of the increasing cases of early sexual maturity and obesity," Wang said.
However, the government has explicitly forbidden hormone additives in food for nearly a decade.
The State Council stated clearly in the administrative regulations on feed additives, enacted in 2001, that feed additive producers are not allowed to add hormonal drugs into feedstock. Authorities at the county level or above are entitled to impose a 10,000- to 50,000-yuan fine on violators.
However, under loose supervision, illegal feed additives are available in almost every agricultural chemical shop, Zhang said.
"In the veterinary drugs' wholesale market in Zhengzhou, you can get all kinds of antibiotics, and the drugs are delivered to the remotest area via distributors," he said.
The Ministry of Agriculture carries out monitoring programs every year to check hormone levels and other illegal ingredients in livestock feed.
In the second half of 2009, the Ministry checked 251 batches of feed additives across China and more than 11 percent did not pass the test.
An official with the Ministry who did not want to be named said besides the monitoring program, they also make inspections upon people's reports.
According to the Ministry's website, three feed producers in Zhejiang and Henan provinces were closed recently for illegal business.
One of them had produced livestock feed that contained hormones, it said.
Source: China Daily(By Cheng Yingqi)
