Dioxin unlikely to harm Belgian health - scientists
Date: 17-Sep-99
Country: BELGIUM
"It is very unlikely that the isolated episode of contamination in
Belgium will cause adverse health effects on the general population," a
group of scientists wrote in this week's edition of the scientific
journal Nature.
A similar message was given by experts testifying before a Belgian
parliamentary committee of inquiry into the dioxin scare which began
public hearings on Wednesday.
The discovery in May that dioxins and toxic polychlorinated biphenyls
(PCBs) had entered the food chain from animal feed contaminated with
motor oil sparked an international health scare.
Supermarket shelves were stripped of many home-produced staples and
countries around the world imposed restrictions or bans on food imports
from Belgium.
The scientists, from the toxicology unit of Leuven University near
Brussels and Belgium's Agriculture Ministry, wrote in a letter to Nature
that tests had shown that chickens and eggs had been contaminated with
up to 250 times the normal tolerance level for PCBs - 200 nanograms per
gram of fat.
Pig meat was less affected, with up to 75 times the tolerance level,
while beef was effectively free of contamination.
However, the scientists said these contamination levels were much less
than those recorded in incidents in Yusho, Japan, in 1968 and Seveso,
Italy, in 1976.
In the first incident, contaminated rice oil poisoned 2,000 people. In
the second, nearly 450 people suffered skin injuries after an explosion
at a chemical plant in Seveso released a cloud of smoke containing
dioxin.
"It would require the consumption of 30 to 40 meals of highly
contaminated chicken or eggs to double the body's PCB and dioxin burden.
Even in such an extreme case, the maximum body burden would still be at
least a factor of one hundred less than the victims of the Yusho
accident, and in the Seveso residents," the scientists said.
They estimated the total amount of contamination in the Belgian incident
at about one gram of dioxin and 50 kilograms of PCBs.
Belgian Health Minister Magda Aelvoet said in an interview published on
Thursday that she planned to bring animal feed and other agricultural
supplies under a planned food agency to ensure there was no repeat of
the episode.
She told newspaper Le Soir the government would support sanctions
against firms supplying sub-standard products.
