June 4, 2005

Banned antibiotic nitrofuran still being detected in shipments to UK

Shipments of frozen shrimp from India, Bangladesh and Vietnam that contain nitrofuran, a banned antibiotic, continue to arrive at the UK's ports of entry. This has lead the country's Food Standards Agency to issue regular contamination notifications to European Union authorities.

In the last five weeks alone, twelve incidents of such nitrofuran presence have been reported in the UK. In some cases, the affected products had already been distributed and consumed by the time test results were received.