The Washington Post
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
By Judith Weinraub, Washington Post Staff Writer

Recently, I set out to buy a simple veal breast — a succulent cut my family
had always enjoyed and that I'd never had trouble finding at my usual market. This time was different.

As it turned out, my search was taking place in the shadow of the Food and Drug Administration's investigation into the practice of implanting growth hormones in veal calves. And, like other current food safety topics that have come to public attention — the trans fats lurking in processed foods, the mercury in tuna, the PCBs in salmon — the veal story isn't generally known by consumers.

As I researched, I learned a lot about the veal supply. If you're planning to dig into a veal chop sometime soon, read on: Earlier this month, the FDA issued what it described as "public safety measures" related to illegal growth-promoting hormone implants in young veal calves. What are these measures and how do they affect the veal supply?

In early March, inspectors from the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection
Service (FSIS) discovered hormone implants in veal calves at two slaughter plants in Wisconsin. The FDA's response to this discovery, which was made in conjunction with the American Veal Association and the FSIS, is to continue to let hormone-implanted veal calves enter the food supply through June 5 under certain specified conditions and precautions. However, from June 6 and afterward, if USDA food safety inspectors find any calves that have been treated with hormones, they have the right to seize and/or condemn the animals. Both of these measures could reduce the supply of veal in the United States.

The practice of implanting growth hormones to stimulate faster growth and bigger muscles (i.e., meat) in animals is standard operating procedure for almost 80 percent of American beef cattle. The use of such hormone implants is approved by the FDA for beef cattle. But it isn't approved for veal calves. Why?

The FDA gave its approval to the use of growth hormone implants in cattle, after tests convinced the agency that the beef was safe for human consumption. So far, however, adequate testing has not been carried out on veal calves.

The FDA defines veal calves to include any pre-ruminating calf intended to be, or having been, processed for veal According to Stephen F. Sundlof, the director of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine, there is a difference between the way adult cattle and veal calves digest and metabolize food. Adult cattle have a rumen -- a kind of extra stomach that's part of the esophagus where the grass or grain eaten by cattle gets regurgitated to be chewed up again and broken down. That's what is called chewing cud.

When calves are born, that rumen has not developed and will not develop as long as the animals are fed with milk or are kept on a liquid diet; such is the case with veal. The FDA's restrictions on growth hormones apply to calves that have not yet become ruminant.

Once cattle are fed grass or grain and become ruminant, their metabolism changes and they process drugs somewhat differently. The reason that hormone implants are not approved is because "we haven't evaluated them in veal calves," says Sundlof. "We've only evaluated them in adult cattle."
How long have growth hormones been used by veal producers?
The practice could be as much as two or three decades old. However, it is
not condoned by the American Veal Association.

Why are these implants described by the FDA as illegal? By law, the FDA doesn't consider a drug safe until it's gone through the administration's approval process. If a drug hasn't been shown to be safe, it is considered illegal.

Despite its announcement of "public safety measures" regarding the use of
hormone implants in veal calves, the FDA told consumers they should not be concerned if they have recently eaten veal. Why?

The FDA does have some preliminary data regarding hormone implants in veal calves, but not enough to assure the safety of the practice. "We know it's different from adult cattle, but we also know it's not tremendously
different," says Sundlof. "There's a subtle difference both in the rate in
which the animals process and eliminate the drugs, and in the metabolism."
In assessing the safety of these illegal implants in veal, the FDA has
assumed a worst-case scenario regarding the amount of veal consumed over a hypothetical 70-year lifetime. "There's no great risk [to humans]," says Sundlof, "because we set a conservative level of drug residue that we
consider to be safe. So if people have eaten less than that, there's certainly enough conservatism built into the system so that those individuals should not be at risk."

What will happen after June 6? Will the issue of hormone implants in veal go
away? Not really. The practice affects the financial viability of many veal
producers. "Once we get past June 6, we'll take stock," says Paul Slayton,
executive director of the American Veal Association. "Some producers may say we've got to get an approval process in place and come up with necessary dollars. But that takes three years because of all the things you have to do to test for drug approval."

Translation: From June 6 on, many veal farmers will have to feed their
animals for a longer period of time before they are ready to be slaughtered.
And veal will be more expensive.

How expensive? It's hard to tell. "My best guess is that it's going to make
the prices spike," says Slayton.

Those of us who liked to cook veal, and the chefs who serve it in their
restaurants, may find ourselves rethinking our choices. At Ristorante Tosca
in downtown Washington, chef Cesare Lanfranconi notes that he's had trouble getting certain cuts of veal in the past couple of months -- a period during which some veal farmers, awaiting the decision of the FDA, did not send their calves to slaughter. Lanfranconi also observes that veal prices
suddenly got so high -- increasing by from about 30 percent to 50 percent --
that he's had to restrict the veal dishes on his menu.

What that means for the cost of traditional restaurant dishes such as osso
buco, veal piccata, vitello tonnato and wiener schnitzel is not hard to
predict. Not to mention ordinary home-cooked veal stew -- or veal breast,
like the one I went searching for three weeks ago.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company