Again dioxin contaminated feed appeared

Authorities warn against dioxin-contaminated feed

01/04/2011

Again dioxin in feed. Dioxin-contaminated feed oil - a so-called supplementary feed - was supplied by Niedersachsen to feed manufacturers in Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg and Austria. The dioxin-contaminated feed oil was delivered by a Lower Saxon fishmeal factory to seven feed producers in Germany and Austria. The dioxin content of the oil processed into animal feed has exceeded the permissible limit four-fold, warned the Lower Saxony Ministry of Agriculture. However, the dioxin content was significantly lower than the critical limit of 1.5 nanograms in studies of the animal feed mixed with the supplementary feed, the competent authorities said.

Threshold for dioxin exposure fourfold exceeded
Dioxin-contaminated feed had only recently triggered one of the largest dioxin scandals in Germany for a long time. At the end of last year, health authorities warned against dioxin-contaminated eggs that had entered the market. The burden was clearly attributed to the use of contaminated feed at that time. And even in the current case, the burden of feed oil could have far-reaching consequences, because the permissible limit was exceeded by four times. However, only four percent of the feed oil was added to the pig feed, which meant that the dioxin contamination of the feed was ultimately below 1.5 nanograms, the authorities said. A recall of the mixed feed or contaminated pork is therefore unlikely to be necessary. The further delivery of the feed oil was however prohibited by the Ministry of Agriculture and a recall of the charged batches initiated. In addition, further analysis of the feed samples will be carried out to definitively rule out a health risk for consumers.

Dioxin as a collective term of dangerous environmental toxins
The term dioxin is a collective term for environmental toxins with similar chemical compounds, which usually arise as by-products in the production of organochlorine chemicals or combustion reactions (waste incineration). The long-lived organic pollutants are hardly degraded by natural means and accumulate through the food chain in living organisms. Today, 75 dioxin species and 135 closely related dioxin-related furans are known to cause serious health problems. Consequences of an increased dioxin exposure may be disorders of the immune system, the nervous system and the hormone balance as well as severe skin diseases (chloracne), respiratory diseases, thyroid problems and impairments of the digestive tract. In addition, numerous dioxins are considered carcinogenic. If there is acute dioxin intoxication, there is little opportunity for rapid detoxification, as the substances are stored in the tissue of the body and even a blood wash can only bring about a minimal reduction in dioxin contamination. Therefore, caution should be exercised when using potentially dioxin-contaminated foods, and the products should never be consumed.

Questionable behavior in the feed industry
Critics have already pointed out in the context of the dioxin scandal at the end of last year that in feed production extremely questionable procedures are sometimes used. Insiders claimed that contaminated products are often diluted extra until the dioxin exposure is below the allowable limit. Against this background, the current case of contaminated feed oil appears in a slightly different light. Because even here, the limit value in the end product could only be met by adding only four percent of the feed oil to the feed. This raises the question of whether the dioxin limit value should not be strictly controlled along the entire production chain in order to exclude as far as possible the further processing of contaminated products. (Fp)

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Image: Gerd Altmann, Pixelio.de