By Anthony O. Miller
DIOXIN contamination is “definitely not a major problem” in the food chain in Cyprus, Dr Pavlos Economides, director of Veterinary Services in the Agriculture Ministry said yesterday.
“From the evidence that we have, from all the official reports, it seems that the problem is not as big as it appears,” Economides told the Cyprus Mail.
The Republic today is asking the Belgian government to clarify what food products it has found to be dioxin-tainted, so Cyprus can destroy those items that are, and release for sale those suspect foods that have been pulled from store shelves, a government official said yesterday.
The Health Ministry has listed 103 food products and four types of animal feeds that are suspected of dioxin poisoning, and ordered them removed from sale. Merchants failing to withdraw the banned items face their confiscation and fines
The decision to query Belgium followed a meeting on the dioxin scare yesterday of the Special Technical Committee, which included representatives of several ministries and departments.
An official Belgian government communiqué to the Republic declared yesterday: “There is no indication whatsoever of systemic or general contamination” of Europe’s food chain by dioxin, according to a government official who requested anonymity. The Belgian government at the weekend also declared its milk products were “up to (EU) standard.”
The Belgian communiqué termed the problem “an incidental introduction into the food chain of one lot of animal fat containing a high dioxin concentration,” the Cyprus official said.
The fat “was supplied to a limited number of foreign companies… between January 19 and January 31 of this year,” the communiqué said. “Of the nine potential sources of this contamination — direct clients of the sole producer — only three companies have so far been positively identified as a positive source of contamination,” it asserted.
The dioxin crisis centres on the Verkest fats and oils company, of Ghent, Belgium, which supplied dioxin-tainted fats to animal feed producers in Belgium, Holland and France.
Those companies supplied feed to poultry, pig and cattle farms in their own countries, Germany and Spain between what the Belgian government now says was only January 19 and January 31 (earlier this month it said the critical dates were January 15 to June 1).
The contamination prompted the European Union to ban the sale or transfer of Belgian-produced animal feeds, raw food and processed food products. Many European, Asian and African countries and the United States banned the import of various raw and processed foods from Belgium and other affected EU countries.
Cyprus followed the EU ban on the sale of all Belgian eggs or egg products; all live chickens, cattle and pigs, dressed poultry, beef and pork, and meat products made from them; powdered milk and baby food containing milk; butter, cheeses, other dairy products; chocolates, mayonnaise and sauces.
The Republic has impounded tons of food products and animal feeds from Belgium in the island’s ports, and also ordered food stores to remove from their shelves all Belgian food products with January 15-June 1 production dates, and to hold them, pending testing, for possible destruction.
Since the Belgian communiqué now suggests January 15-June 1 might be too broad a time-frame, the Cyprus government today is asking Belgium for a complete list of all food products that Brussels has found to be dioxin- tainted, Dr Andreas Orphanides, Senior Veterinary Officer, told the Cyprus Mailyesterday.
If Belgian officials declare specific products dioxin-tainted, or are unable to say one way or another, those products will be destroyed, Orphanides said. Otherwise, they will be put back into circulation for sale in stores, he added.
Orphanides said the government does “not know yet” how it will destroy any dioxin-tainted items. He acknowledged Cyprus lacked facilities safely to destroy dioxins, conceding that burning them would pollute the air with the cancer-causing toxin, and dumping would ultimately poison ground-water.
The special technical committee is awaiting “further information” from overseas before deciding how to destroy dioxin-tainted foods, Orphanides said, adding the quantity of suspect food ordered pulled from Cyprus shelves was “not very big.”
Dioxin, a by-product of herbicide production, can kill some species of newborn mammals and fish at levels of 5 parts per trillion (or one ounce in 6 million tons).
Its half-life of 12 years lets it build up in the body and pass down to human offspring, causing grotesque birth deformities. Children are especially vulnerable, as dioxin is transmitted in human breast milk and cow’s milk.
