Dioxin contaminated food - Time to analyze samples

[Emmanuel de Broux <emmanuel.debroux@ping.be>]

Hello, listers.

It might interest you to know the answers I got to my message saying this:

Despite numerous messages to Belgian newspapers, I still do not know the
typical time it takes to determine the dioxins (+ furans + PCBs) content of
a substance. I guess it is close to two weeks, maybe three.

The fist answer came from Dr. Mueller, MPU GmbH, Berlin, Germany and said:

> I´m manager of one of the biggest dioxin lab at Germany and we offer our clients normaly 2 weeks for the analysis of dioxins in diffrent kind of samples. If they like to have the results faster, we can do our job in around 48 hours (but only for a limited number of samples).
The second answer came from Mr. Middleditch:

> In the US, dioxin labs normally quote a "standard" turnaround time of 21 
> days.  About a year ago some of the larger labs were quoting 28 days because 
> they were swamped with work.  But it was always an option to do the analyses 
> more quickly (for a higher fee).  My wife's lab rarely quoted turnaround 
> times of less than 3 days (which was achievable on a routine basis), but they 
> were able to produce results (with full quality control) in as little as 5 
> hours.

The generic word "dioxin" used here covers dioxins - 75 isomers, furans - 135 isomers and PCBs - 209 isomers. According to a WHO report, only a relatively small number of these substances are considered toxic enough to get a Toxic Equivalency Factor. The factor may be different for mammals, fishes and birds.

Best regards.


- Mr Emmanuel de Broux, avenue du Sacre-Coeur 7, B-5590 Leignon, Belgium.
Tel + fax: international access code + 32 83 21 54 30