THE Health Ministry yesterday launched checks into all by-products that might contain Dutch milk, following the discovery of cancer-causing dioxin in animal feed in the Netherlands.
Minister Dina Akkelidou said the ministry had started carrying out checks to establish whether the dioxin had found its way in imported by-products.
The minister added that if necessary samples would be sent overseas for tests.
At this stage, the checks would be conducted through an electronic system, and would initially examine whether suspect products such as cheese and condensed milk were present in the local market.
The Head of the Veterinary Services, Phidias Loukaides, told the Cyprus Mail that it would take a few days before knowing if such products originating in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, had reached the local market.
However, the state services were yesterday carrying out their own sample checks, Loukaides said.
He added that no meat products were imported from the Netherlands.
The Dutch farm ministry sealed off more livestock farms yesterday after discovering dioxin in animal feed that had also been exported to neighbouring Germany and Belgium, authorities there said.
A total of 162 Dutch cattle, pig, sheep and goat farms, eight Belgian farms and three German had bought a potato feed product that was contaminated with dioxin.
Authorities in the three countries have temporarily shut all the farms as a precaution since Wednesday and have been examining the feed, the animals and any impact on the food chain.
The product was from the Dutch unit of privately held Canadian potato chip maker McCain, the Dutch ministry said.
“We’ve tracked down all the farms that have bought the contaminated feed and we have informed our colleagues in Germany and Belgium,” said Benno Bruggink, a spokesman for the Dutch Agriculture Ministry.
McCain and ministry officials say the reason for the contamination of the feed is a clay used for sorting potatoes.
McCain Foods Holland has launched a broader investigation and halted feed sales from its three Dutch factories last week.
“We have stopped using the clay, which originated from Germany. Both McCain and food authorities are making their own research, which we will cross-check and announce the results by next week,” a McCain spokesman said.
Dioxins are one of a number of toxic chemicals that originate in pesticides or industrial processes, leach into rivers and lakes and build up in the flesh of fish and animals.
Contaminated feed was at the root of recent European food scares such as the discovery of an illegal hormone in Dutch pigs in 2002 and the 1999 Belgian scandal of dioxin in chickens.
The European Commission, which has further tightened hygiene requirements on animal feed this year, said the Dutch government had been dealing with the dioxin issue very efficiently.
“We have been informed by the Dutch government very speedily…The Dutch government is tracing the feed and following EU food law,” said Commission spokeswoman Beate Gminder.
“Only Belgium and Germany have been involved so far,” she added. Dutch authorities expect to have results of laboratory tests on whether meat or animals had been contaminated with dioxin by Friday. So far, tests have found dioxin in the milk of only two of the Dutch farms involved.
Dioxin is formed by burning chlorine-based chemical compounds with hudrocarbons.
The major source of dioxin in the environment comes from waste-burning incinerators of various sorts and also from backyard burn-barrels.
In addition to cancer, exposure to dioxin can also cause severe reproductive and developmental problems – at levels 100 times lower than those associated with its cancer-causing effects.
Dioxin is well-known for its ability to damage the immune system and interfere with hormonal systems.
