dioxin in chicken

[Neil Tangri <ntangri@essential.org>]

     EU Gives Order to Destroy Belgian 'Chicken a la Dioxin' By Charles 
     Trueheart
     Washington Post Foreign Service
     Thursday, June 3, 1999; Page A24 
     
     PARIS, June 2_As public fears of dioxin-poisoned Belgian chickens and 
     eggs spread across Europe, the European Union today ordered that a 
     vast array of potentially tainted Belgian food products, including 
     cakes, cookies, mayonnaise and pasta made with suspect eggs, be 
     withdrawn from sale and destroyed.
     
     The European Union acted after the Belgian government decided to ban 
     the sale of all chicken- or egg-based foods after high levels of the 
     carcinogenic chemical were found in animal feed sold to poultry farms 
     by a Belgian processor.
     
     The suspect shipments of animal feed date to mid-January. Belgian 
     authorities reportedly were tipped to the problem three months later. 
     But more than a month then elapsed before Belgian health and 
     agriculture officials, confronted by press disclosures, admitted they 
     had been investigating the reports but had not warned the public of 
     the potentially fatal hazards of ingesting dioxin in the reported 
     quantities -- which were as much as 1,500 times higher than the 
     acceptable level.
     
     To date, there have been no reported illnesses from the dioxin 
     contamination.
     
     The Belgian health and agriculture ministers resigned over the scandal 
     Tuesday, 12 days before general elections that could now topple the 
     ruling coalition.
     
     The chickens, eggs and poultry byproducts suspected of contamination 
     by the tainted feed originated in some 400 poultry farms, mostly in 
     the Dutch-speaking Flanders portion of Belgium and in northeast 
     France.
     
     Health officials in Belgium believe that the feed manufacturer had 
     used a batch of animal and vegetable oils, routinely added to the 
     pellet mixtures fed to chickens, that had been laced with 
     dioxin-contaminated motor oils. European officials reportedly are 
     investigating the possibility that poisoned feed also was distributed 
     to pork producers.
     
     Pending today's action by the European Union, the French government 
     had blocked the sale of chickens and eggs from the 30 French farms 
     that bought the suspect feed. Greek authorities seized a 40-ton 
     shipment of French chickens, while German, Italian, Dutch, Polish and 
     Russian authorities slapped temporary bans on Belgian poultry imports.
     
     Other countries' health officials said they were waiting for evidence 
     that contaminated products had found their way into national food 
     distribution systems. But enough time has passed for plenty of 
     dioxin-tainted foods -- how much may never be known -- to have passed 
     through the marketplace and into human alimentary systems.
     
     The developing toxic food crisis -- dubbed "chicken a la dioxin" in 
     the French media -- stirred recent memories of public hysteria, 
     bureaucratic turmoil and European bickering over Britain's outbreak of 
     "mad cow disease," suspected in 1996 of infecting beef-eating humans. 
     The crisis forced Britain to slaughter tens of thousands of cattle and 
     led the European Union to impose an export ban on British beef that 
     has not yet been lifted.
     
     The increasing interdependence of European nations as goods pass 
     routinely across borders means that any food-related health problem in 
     one country almost automatically becomes a health problem for the 
     continent. 
     
     
     c Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company



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Neil TANGRI