Scientific Research and Argumentation in the Ractopamine Controversy: Evidence from Systematic Literature Analysis and Bibliometrics

A series of debates about health, ecology, and livestock production have been erupted in Taiwanese society since August 2020, following a decision by Taiwan’s government to allow the importation of pork containing ractopamine from the United States. It becomes necessary to understand how the academic research results on ractopamine have been quoted and interpreted as the basis for discussing the debates. In this systematic review of literature along with bibliometrics, we designed a coding scheme for judging the positive and negative effects of ractopamine on health and ecology reported in the academic papers. A total of 511 articles were found in the Scopus between 2000 and 2020. According to the literature review, human health and ecological concerns are not the focus of mainstream academia. The analyses reveal that the positions of academic communities are obviously divided and lack consensus on the health and ecological stance of ractopamine. The mutual use of systematic literature review and bibliometrics can effectively explore the research characteristics of a huge amount of academic literature with limited time and research manpower, create a common knowledge base for stakeholders, and practice low-cost democratic participation in science and technology issues. This research suggests that for any controversial and risk-related technology policies, or in the early stages of policy discussion, a large-scale academic literature review should be conducted by a third-party organization in order to achieve transparent governance.