RE: Belgium has a problem: Dioxin-tainted food

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

This is, unfortunately, what I expected: Arochlor. Monsanto's nasty PCBs,
that have contaminated every square millimeter of the earth.

Jon

-----Original Message-----
From: Jackie Hunt Christensen [mailto:jchristensen@iatp.org]
Sent: Monday, June 14, 1999 2:50 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list DIOXIN-L
Subject: Belgium has a problem: Dioxin-tainted food


CHEMICAL & ENGINEERING NEWS
June 14, 1999 
Volume 77, Number 24


Belgium has a problem: Dioxin-tainted food

Bette Hileman 
Belgium is facing what may well be one of the most expensive cases of
tainted food ever. It has been forced to remove from the market and destroy
huge amounts of polychlorinated biphenyl- and dioxin-contaminated chickens,
dairy products, eggs, baked goods, and some pork and beef products.

All the contamination springs from one batch of contaminated fat that was
incorporated into animal feed sold in Belgium since the beginning of the
year. Some of the feed found its way into France and the Netherlands, so
some of their livestock were also contaminated.

At a June 9 hearing in Brussels, two Belgian health officials said that 2
to 4 kg of a mixture of PCBs and dioxins, most likely Arochlor 1260--a
technical PCB mixture once used as a transformer oil--was put into one
80,000-kg batch of animal fat. This fat was then mixed with 1.4 million kg
of animal feed. Adding animal fat to livestock feed is a common practice in
both Europe and the U.S.

Apparently the PCBs at one time had been heated to a high temperature,
converting 50 to 80 mg of the PCBs to dioxins and furans. Consequently,
according to the health officials, 2 billion picograms of dioxin toxic
equivalents (a weighted measurement based on total polychlorinated dioxins
and furans) entered the food chain through chicken, dairy, and pig farms.

Belgian authorities first became aware of a possible problem April 26, when
they obtained lab results from the Dutch Ministry of Health showing that
laying hens and eggs from one farm were contaminated with very high levels
of dioxins. The test data show 958 ppt of dioxin toxic equivalents in the
fat of one chicken and 775 ppt in the fat of another. Two egg samples were
also found to be contaminated. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
allows no more than 1 ppt of dioxins in chicken, and Belgium considers
levels over 5 ppt dangerous.

According to another Belgian official working on the problem, the
government waited a month to inform consumers of the problem because it
wanted to confirm the original test results before taking an action that
could have a large, adverse economic impact. And Belgium is losing $10
million to $12 million a day as a result of the contamination, he says, a
large sum for a small country.

The European Commission and the Belgian government are now arguing about
how to test food for possible contamination. The EC wants Belgium to use
dioxin tests, which are expensive and take four weeks for results, Belgian
officials say. Because PCBs occur in all the dioxin-tainted food, Belgium
wants to use a PCB test, which takes only 24 hours and is inexpensive.

All of the contaminated food in Belgium will eventually be destroyed in a
high-temperature incinerator. At the hearing, a representative of the
Netherlands said his country's problem was solved because all of the
contaminated products in the Netherlands had already been eaten.

The Belgium government stresses that, so far, no health problems have been
linked to contaminated food. Belgium has 3,266 poultry farms, and the
government has compiled lists of those that did and did not use the tainted
feed. The "clean" farms--about three-quarters of the total--are allowed to
sell their products, said Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene in a speech June
8.

Still, Greenpeace International, which has been following this issue
closely, urges the EU to "prohibit the use of all wastes in animal fodder
unless tested and proven uncontaminated."