RE: Belgian dioxin contamination

["Campbell, Jon" <Campbell@Rational.Com>]

the waste oil hypothesis is the strongest one that I have heard yet.

This crisis reminds me of "The Poisoning of Michigan": Velsicol (then
Michigan) Chemical Company sold cow feed additive and PBB (polybrominated
biphenyl) flame retardant, and ran out of PBB bags, so they used some feed
additive bags, sold them to Agway as feed additive, which then got mixed
with feed, to hundreds of thousands of cows.

In Belgium, it was an oil feed additive company which apparently
inadvertently or purposely slipped in some waste oil (as far as I know, no
motor oil contains PCBs or dioxins, though I've always wondered about Mobil
1 and the other longer-lasting synthetics...) that contained dioxin (no word
about PCBs...anyone heard anything else?).

Jon

PS does anyone have or know how to get a MSDS for Mobil 1?

-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Watson [mailto:alanwatson@gn.apc.org]
Sent: Friday, June 04, 1999 10:12 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list DIOXIN-L
Subject: Belgian dioxin contamination 


-------------------------
Belgian dioxin contamination traced to feed
ENDS Daily - 02/06/99
-------------------------
Contaminated animal feed has been blamed for causing
dangerously high levels of dioxins in Belgian chicken meat
and eggs - a food scandal which has led to the products
being banned throughout Europe and the resignation of two
government ministers.

The dioxins are believed to have entered the food chain
when a Belgian company supplied fats to animal feed
manufacturers that contained some kind of non-animal oil as
well as the animal fat commonly used in its product.  The
resultant animal feed was then sold to hundreds of poultry
farms during the first half of this year.  The director of
the Gent-based company was arrested yesterday.

The Belgian public first became aware of the health risks
posed by the cancer-causing contaminants at the end of last
week when the government instructed shops to remove Belgian
eggs and chicken from the shelves and warned consumers not
to eat any such products they may have already bought.  The
ban spread to the entire EU today when the European
Commission's veterinary committee decreed that all poultry
products from the farms believed to have used the
contaminated feed should be destroyed.  Belgium will only
be allowed to export poultry certified as coming from
unaffected farms.

The health minister Marcel Colla and the agriculture
minister Karel Pinxten both resigned yesterday, amid
accusations that they had delayed taking action to protect
public health despite knowing about the contamination for
about a month.  The Belgian government was similarly
criticised by acting EU farm commissioner Franz Fischler
who said Belgium should have informed the Commission of the
problem as soon as it knew about it.

Scientists are still unsure about the origin of the
dioxins.  According to Ruth Stringer of Greenpeace Research
Laboratories in Exeter University, the dioxins in the
samples of feed, eggs and chicken meat do not match up to
the most common sources of dioxin pollution such as waste
incineration.  In an unconnected case last year of German
cows milk contaminated by dioxins the source was eventually
identified as coming from feed made of Brazilian citrus
pulp mixed with contaminated mineral lime (ENDS Daily 3
May).

Greenpeace has seized on this latest food scare to
highlight the problem of dioxins in general.  Martin
Besieux of Greenpeace Belgium said governments should start
to implement the principle established under the Ospar
convention for protection of the North Atlantic, where 15
European countries have agreed to aim for "close to zero"
emissions of man-made hazardous and radioactive substances
into the marine environment by 2020 (ENDS Daily 23 July
1998).  The NGO says the first step to eliminate dioxins
from the environment should be to phase out incineration,
followed by product substitution and clean production
measures.

Contacts:  Greenpeace Belgium
(http://greenpeace.agoranet.be), tel: +32 2 201 1944.


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