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| Chicken meat stemming from poultry farms affected by a tainted egg scandal is being tested to determine whether it, too, was contaminated.
In a new twist in Europe's tainted egg scandal, Dutch authorities
announced they had started testing chicken meat coming from affected poultry
farms to determine whether it was also contaminated.
Scientists are looking for the presence of the insecticide fipronil, a
substance potentially dangerous to humans, after supermarkets in Germany, the
Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden and Switzerland pulled millions of eggs from the
shelves.
"We are currently testing chicken meat in the poultry farms where
eggs were infected to determine whether the meat is contaminated as well,"
Tjitte Mastenbroek, spokesman for food security agency NVWA, said.
The probe focuses on "a few dozen" farms that produce both
eggs and chicken meat, NVWA said.
Meanwhile, the Dutch Safety Board, the country's agency looking into
civilian safety issues, announced it was opening its own probe into why
fipronil was not detected earlier in eggs as well as "the role in this of
the poultry sector and Dutch government."
"The way consumers have been informed about the risks of fipronil
are also being investigated," the Hague-based OVV said in a statement.
Millions of chickens now face being culled in the Netherlands as the
scandal widens across Europe.
Hard-hit Germany on Tuesday called on Belgian and Dutch authorities to
quickly shed light on what it termed a "criminal network" involved in
the contamination of eggs with fipronil.
"When one sees a criminal energy that's almost organised as a
network it's unacceptable," said German Agriculture Minister Christian
Schmidt.
He again criticised Belgian and Dutch authorities' tardy response to the
crisis.
Belgium's top agricultural official Monday ordered the country's food
safety agency to report within a day why it failed to notify neighbouring
countries until July 20 despite knowing about fipronil contamination since
June.
"It's not in the spirit of the early warning system to be aware in
June but only to inform us by the end of July," Schmidt said.
Mastenbroek told AFP that a criminal probe by the NVWA under Dutch
prosecution authorities and assisted by Belgium is continuing, looking at the
role of companies in contaminating Dutch poultry farms with fipronil.
Meanwhile, the French government said Monday "thirteen batches of
contaminated eggs from The Netherlands" were delivered in July to food
processing companies located in central-western France.
- First egg, now chicken -
Mastenbroek said so far her agency's "highest priority" has
been the detection of contaminated eggs.
"But now we also have the time to look at meat as a precautionary
measure," she said.
Most farms exclusively produce one or the other, said Eric Hubers at
LTO, a Dutch farming organisation.
If the meat tests are negative for fipronil, producers will be cleared
to resume sales, Mastenbroek said.
LTO said the probability of chicken meat found to be infected was small.
However, if fipronil was detected "farming will be completely
suspended," Mastenbroek said.
- Cutting costs -
The contaminated egg scandal erupted last week when up to 180 Dutch
farms were shuttered due to the presence of fipronil discovered in some of the
eggs.
It is believed the toxic substance was introduced to poultry farms by a
Dutch business named Chickfriend brought in to treat red lice, a parasite in
chickens.
Dutch and Belgian media reports that the substance containing the
insecticide was supplied to Chickfriend a small company operating out of the
Dutch poultry heartland in the central town of Barneveld by a Belgian firm have
not been confirmed.
Currently Dutch authorities have closed down 138 poultry farms about a
fifth of those across the country and warned that eggs from another 59 farms
contained enough levels of fipronil that they should not be eaten by children.
Belgium has blocked production from 51 farms a quarter of those
nationwide with fipronil found at 21 farms, although levels were ten times
below the maximum EU limit, the country's food and safety authority AFSCA said.
Other European countries including Austria, Bulgaria, Poland, Portugal
and Romania said they were analysing imported eggs, but so far no contaminated
eggs were found.
Enviromental group Greenpeace on Tuesday called for massive reforms in
the food supply system to become safer, healthier and more transparent and to
do away with so-called "factory farming".
"Factory farming has been at the centre of a number of scandals,
from Mad cow disease to bird flu, from swine flu to horsemeat," said
Davin Hutchins, Greenpeace senior food campaigner.
"These are symptoms of a system trying to cut costs at every corner
to maximise profits at the expense of public health and the environment,"
he said.
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