After moving to Australia from Europe, I was shocked to hear that hormone treatment of cattle for beef production is allowed here. Since then I did not buy any beef in Australia, eating less meat in general and switching to fish, lamb and kangaroo ;-] Similar things happen in agriculture, where many products already banned in Europe for years due to health impacts are still allowed here to be sprayed onto the fields. As a minimum requirement mandatory product labeling should be imposed in the stores to give the customer a chance to avoid products with hormone treatment and gene modifications. Chris Hostettler