Belgian dioxin scandal

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The Belgian dioxin scandal or chicken gate is the name given to the scandal of dioxin and PCB- contaminated feed fat from Belgium , which was discovered in 1999 and caused by poultry diseases in fattening farms.

history

prehistory

It was already known from the incidents with contaminated feed , known as Chick Edema Disease , which led to the culling of hundreds of thousands of farm animals such as chickens and cattle in the USA in 1957 and 1960 , that the admixture of PCP and PCB- contaminated fats and oils in feed fats and fats Furans are formed, which lead to serious diseases and deformities in the farm animals fed and are entered into the human food chain .

Incident in Belgium

In the first half of 1999, the Belgian fat recycling company Verkest supplied fatty acids contaminated with dioxins and PCBs to feed manufacturers in several European countries. The dioxin was created, among other things, when contaminated primary materials were heated: In addition to waste from municipal disposal, waste oil containing PCBs was also redistilled. As in the incidents in the USA, the dioxin contamination became conspicuous due to the development of poultry diseases and deformities in Belgian fattening farms - until then, there was no complete monitoring of the pollutants of the feed. In response to the dioxin pollution, several countries imposed import bans on Belgian meat and, in some cases, dairy products.

In order to prevent such events in the future, the Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain (FASFC) was established in Belgium in 2000 and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) was established at European level in 2002 .

See also

swell

  • Volker Mrasek , Hendrik Munsberg, Sylvia Schreiber, Andrea Stuppe, Hans-Jörg Vehlewald: Encore from special waste , in " Der Spiegel " 23/1999 from September 7, 1999 ( online , accessed on September 8, 2015).
  • David Firestone: Etiology of chick edema disease. In: Environmental health perspectives . Volume 5, September 1973, pp. 59-66, PMID 4201768 , PMC 1474955 (free full text).
  • Jean Francois Focant et al .: Dioxins in our food: Where are we 14 years after the Belgian chicken-gate? , University of Liege, October 2013, ( PDF , accessed September 8, 2015).
  • Food confusion in Belgium in: DER STANDARD, Vienna, June 7, 1999, p. 18 ( online , accessed September 8, 2015).