August 8, 2017

 

European tainted-egg scandal spreads

 

 

A European egg-contamination scandal has spread after Britain and France said on Monday, Aug. 7, that some insecticide-tainted eggs might have entered their countries. Earlier the Netherlands culled some 300,000 chickens and is about to kill millions more, Agence-France Presse (AFP) reported.

 

Belgium has been accused of keeping the scandal under wraps despite originally learning as early as June about the problem involving fipronil, a substance used to treat red lice afflicting chickens and which is potentially dangerous to humans. Fipronil is banned from being used to treat food animals such as chickens into whose skin or feathers the substance is absorbed and then passed into the eggs.

 

Belgium gave the European Commission the first notification only on July 20, after which supermarkets in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands reportedly pulled millions of eggs from the shelves. Retailers in Sweden and Switzerland followed suit.

 

Germany wants Belgium to explain why the issue was kept secret.

 

Belgium's agriculture minister ordered the country's food safety authority AFSCA to report by Tuesday on why it failed to notify neighbouring countries until July 20 despite knowing about fipronil contamination since June.

 

The EC said Monday that eggs suspected of being contaminated had been distributed to France and Britain via Germany.

 

'Traceable and trackable'

 

"It's now up to the Swedish, Swiss, French and to the UK to check because all these eggs are traceable and trackable", EC spokeswoman Anna-Kaisa Itkonen was quoted as telling reporters.

 

Britain's Food Standards Agency said on Monday that "a very small number of eggs have been distributed to the UK from farms affected", adding the "risk to public health is very low".

 

France said 13 batches of Dutch eggs contaminated with fipronil had been found at two food-processing factories in its central-western region, according to AFP.

 

The toxic substance is believed to have been introduced to poultry farms by Dutch firm Chickfriend to treat red lice. A Belgian company allegedly supplied the substance containing the insecticide.

 

In the Netherlands, around 300,000 hens have been killed, but Dutch farming organisation LTO said several million more might need to be culled at 150 companies in the country.

 

An LTO spokesman said they "had to be eliminated because of contamination", AFP reported.