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re: Chicken Sale

  John - I've been trying to find anything/everything about this ban...
  it's been unbelievably quiet.
  
  The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has had the most 'news' - there was an
  article almost every day last week, and at least one editorial.  Most of
  these had an anti-testing flavor to them...  I don't think these are
  still up on their site at http://www.ardemgaz.com but if you missed one,
  I think I have copies of all of them.
  
  The NANDO Times had an article on Tuesday - essentially an
  information-only piece. I am certain that this one is no longer up on
  the web.  Nando is at http://www.nando.net
  
  I think the Wall Street Journal had two little blurbs last week - one
  was on Wednesday, Section B, page 4.
  
  The best information I've found has been on the FDA and USDA web sites. 
  The FDA site has a list of "Regulatory Bulletins" at
  http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~lrd/pestadd.html, and the USDA has a few dioxin
  advisories at http://www.usda.gov/agency/fsis/dioxmenu.htm.
  
  It's very interesting to note the consistent omissions...  How long has
  the FDA known about the ball clay dioxin contamination?  When were the
  elevated dioxin levels in the chicken discovered (I'm not sure, but I
  think I heard that the tests done 'this year' were done in late 1996)? 
  Why did the FDA/USDA wait until now to take this action?
  
  I also don't understand why the FDA is setting a TCDD limit and not a
  TEQ limit for the testing...  I realize that TCDD made up about 50 to
  60% of the total contribution to TEQ's in the clay, but I would imagine
  that all the other congeners would be worth measuring too.  Is is more
  expensive (significantly) to measure TEQ's?  My understanding is that
  testing starts at $1,800 for a TCDD measure only, but I don't know how
  the price is affected when you need TEQ's.
  
  
   
  ---------------------------------------------------
  Bradford B. Newton
  NC Small Business and Technology Development Center
  Brad.Newton@unc.edu
  http://www.unc.edu/~newtonbr
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