ATHENS NEWS FRIDAY 14 JANUARY 2011
The concentration of dioxins and PCBs in humans
(in picograms per gram)
In blood
Finland
Spain
America
Norway
New Zealand
Germany
Australia
Greece
In breastmilk
40.9
31.2
25.4
21.1
18.8
18.3
14.5
10
Ukraine
Netherlands
Belgium
Italy
Egypt
Germany
Czech Republic
Russia
Spain
Slovakia
Sweden
Romania
Greece
Ireland
America
New Zealand
Bulgaria
Hungary
Australia
Philippines
Brazil
Fiji
30
29.8
29.5
28.9
27.8
26.2
23
22.8
21
21.7
19.3
16.9
13.4
12.3
11.8
10.8
10.3
9.6
8.4
6.3
5.7
5.1
Sources: European Food Safety Agency and the Mass Spectrometry and Dioxin Analysis Laboratory of the
Demokritos National Scientific Research Centre
is best
the very strong winds at the time, which dispersed
the dioxins over a very wide area.”
As they are fat-soluble, dioxins can be
removed from the surfaces of fruit and vegetables
by washing, he added.
But dioxins do not just enter the food chain
through environmental pollution, as demonstrated
the ongoing German scandal, where industrial fats
from biodiesel production were used to make feed
compounds destined for animal consumption.
Money, money
Like the Belgian dioxin scandal in 1999, the
deliberate and criminal introduction of dioxins
into the food chain causes the most damage, said
Leondiadis, adding that profit is the motive.
10-11
Germany kills 140 dioxin-contaminated pigs
GERMAN authorities ordered 140 investigators found excessive levels
pigs slaughtered on January 12 after of dioxin in eggs and some chicken.
tests showed high levels of a cancer- Authorities then froze sales of
causing chemical for the first time in poultry, eggs and, as a precaution,
swine, as the nation’s dioxin scandal pork, from thousands of farms as
some countries banned German farm
widened beyond poultry and eggs.
The top agriculture official in products.
Some 558 farms still remained
northern Germany’s Lower Saxony
state demanded the cull after tests closed on January 12, said Holger
found illegal levels of dioxin in swine Eichele, a spokesman for the federal
at a farm near Verden that purchased agricultural ministry.
tainted feed from the company
believed to be responsible for the Exports
scandal.
Germans love their pork. In 2009,
German firm
about 7.7 million
Harles & Jentzsch
tonnes of meat was
GmbH,
which
produced in Germany
About 7.7 million - pork being the No 1
produced fat used in
the tainted feed tonnes of meat was at almost 68 percent,
pellets, is being
followed by poultry at
investigated over produced in Germany 17 percent and beef at
allegations it did not in 2009 - pork being 15 percent, according
alert authorities to the
to the Meat Industry
tainted product for
the No 1
Association. Some 1.4
months. Tests have
million tonnes of
shown that fat at almost 68 percent German pork was
samples contained
exported in 2009,
more than 70 times
mostly to other
European Union countries.
the permitted amount of dioxin.
Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner
“We
were
specifically
investigating this farm, because they has said officials were working
had bought their livestock feed from nonstop to find out who and what
Harles & Jentzsch,” Lower Saxony’s had contaminated the feed and
Agriculture Minister Gert Hahne vowed tough legal action against
said.
those responsible. She said
Some 140 of the 536 pigs at the companies should be banned from
affected farm have to be slaughtered producing both industrial fats and fats
because the dioxin levels in their flesh used for livestock, to avoid the
were 50 percent above the maximum possibility that industrial fats could
allowed, Ulf Neumann, a spokesman end up in animal feed.
for the Verden government, said
Harles & Jentzsch chief Siegfried
January 11. The other pigs apparently Sievert has said the company believed
did not eat the contaminated feed.
that byproducts from palm, soy and
The scandal broke when German rapeseed oil used to make organic
diesel fuels were safe for use in
livestock feed.
In Brussels, the EU was
considering how to better monitor fat
for animal feed, said Frederic
Vincent, the spokesman for Health
and Consumer Policy Commissioner
John Dalli. EU officials met with fat
producers but “we were somewhat
disappointed by the absence of
proposals from the industry,” he said.
The German dioxin scandal is the
fourth in the EU over the past
decade - and each time fat made for
industrial use ended up in animal
feed. Germany has had another
dioxin scandal in the past and so did
Belgium and Ireland.
(AP)
China suspends
German pork,
egg imports
CHINA has suspended
imports of pork and egg
products from Germany after
the discovery of dioxins in its
pork and poultry products.
The ban was effective from
January 11, said the General
Administration of Quality
Supervision, Inspection and
Quarantine in a statement on
its website. Shipments that are
already on the way and arrive
after January 11 have to be
tested for dioxin, said the
administration. German
officials said dioxin-tainted
feed had been fed to hens and
pigs, contaminating eggs and
poultry meat at the affected
farms.
(Reuters)
“In such cases, you have much bigger
concentrations of dioxins than through
environmental factors,” said Leondiadis, who
emphasised that the nonindustrial nature of Greek
agriculture serves, in a way, to protect it.
“Greek farmers generally source their feed
locally and rely on traditional foods like maize,”
he noted.
Leondiadis was keen to underline that
controls in Greece remain a state service, unlike
in many northern European countries where they
have been privatised.
“A private lab may find that something is
wrong but they may not make this public,” he said.
“My opinion is that we need to have state control
- the private sector is not the solution.”
Inspections intensify in Greece following German dioxin scare
Michaela Rehle, Reuters
INSPECTIONS conducted in major warehouses and supermarket chains in Athens and
Thessaloniki have confirmed that no imports from Germany were made during the period
prior to the German dioxin animal feed scandal, the Hellenic Food Authority (EFET)
announced on January 10.
However, EFET said its inspections will intensify and spread throughout Greece to
completely rule out the likelihood of contaminated German raw material imports, focusing
mainly on pork, poultry and eggs.
EFET president Yiorgos Nichas said that inspections conducted so far had focused on
import companies’ and food stores’ invoices. He underlined that based on figures coming
from Germany the problem is not as big as originally feared since 70 percent of the production
units initially under quarantine have already returned to their normal operation after being
cleared of dioxin contamination.
(ANA)
Pigs at an organic pig farm in Germering, west of Munich, southern Germany, on January 12