Yahoo – AFP, Charlotte VAN OUWERKERK, August 3, 2017
The Hague
(AFP) - Supermarkets in the Netherlands and Germany moved to halt some egg
sales Thursday as hundreds of thousands may have been contaminated by a toxic
insecticide in a widening food scandal.
Amid fears
the Dutch poultry industry could be facing millions of euros in losses, the
country's biggest supermarket chain Albert Heijn said it was pulling 14 types
of eggs from its shelves.
"All
the eggs of these 14 kinds have been sent back to the depot and
destroyed," company spokeswoman Els van Dijk told AFP.
It was
"an unprecedented" situation for Albert Heijn, she added, saying
instructions of the Dutch food authority (NVWA) were being followed.
Damage to
Dutch poultry farms is already believed to have run into millions of euros,
said Hennie de Haan, president of the National Poultry Owners union.
The NVWA
was due to publish its findings later Thursday having closed 180 poultry farms
across The Netherlands this week after traces of the insecticide, fipronil, was
first found in samples taken from eggs, droppings and meat in late July.
Manufactured
by Germany's BASF among other companies, fipronil is commonly used in
veterinary products to get rid of fleas, lice and ticks.
But it is
banned from being used to treat animals destined for human consumption, such as
chickens.
The
European Commission said it had been made aware of the egg issue, and EC
spokeswoman Anna-Kaisa Itkonen told reporters developments were being monitored
"very closely".
"What
I can say is that the farms are identified, the eggs are blocked, the
contaminated eggs are traced and withdrawn from the market, and the situation
is under control."
It is
believed the substance was introduced to poultry farms by a Dutch business,
named Chickfriend, which was called in to treat red lice, a nasty parasite in
chickens.
German
Agriculture Minister Christian Schmidt called a "crisis
teleconference" Thursday with his counterparts in German states where
fipronil was also detected in eggs.
About one
million eggs being transported to Germany were also recalled from the border on
Tuesday with The Netherlands, the Dutch food authority NVWA added.
Belgium's
federal food chain security agency (AFSCA) said it too has launched an
investigation in cooperation with prosecutors.
Tests have
found fipronil in some eggs but not in quantities that pose a threat to human
health. None of the eggs have made it to Belgian supermarket shelves, the
Belgian authority said.
In large
quantities, the substance is considered to be "moderately hazardous"
according to the World Health Organisation, and can have dangerous effects on
people's kidneys, liver and thyroid glands.
It is
another blow for Dutch poultry farmers, some of who believe they could now be
facing bankruptcy, after 190,000 ducks were culled in November due to a highly
infectious strain of bird flu.
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