Millions of eggs are being recalled from shops and warehouses in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium after they were found to contain high levels of a toxic insecticide banned from use in the production of food for human consumption.
About 180 farms in the Netherlands have been temporarily closed and a criminal investigation has been launched as authorities seek to get a grip on the scale of the problem. About a million eggs destined for Germany were recalled from the border with the Netherlands this week.
Tests of chicken droppings, blood and eggs had shown high levels of the insecticide fipronil, a common ingredient in veterinary products for getting rid of fleas, lice and ticks, but banned from being used to treat animals destined for human consumption.
According to the World Health Organisation, the highly toxic substance can damage the liver, thyroid glands and kidneys if ingested in large amounts over time.
Belgian prosecutors are said to be examining the client list of two companies in Flanders specialising in the production and supply of anti-lice agents. It is feared that an insecticide legally used in the keeping of chickens had been spliced with the illegal substance to improve its effectiveness.
One Dutch newspaper, Trouw, suggested one of the companies may have had clients in the UK, France and Poland, although there is no suggestion so far that contaminated eggs are being sold in those countries.
The Dutch daily newspaper De Volkskrant reported that the illegal mix had been used on farms in the Netherlands for over a year. The Dutch food and product safety board, the NVWA, told the newspaper it was unclear whether contaminated eggs had been sold to customers over that period. “We have no way of checking because the eggs have been eaten,” a spokesman said.
On Monday the NVWA warned consumers that one batch of eggs “had such elevated levels of fipronil that their consumption would present a serious public health risk”. They advised that eggs from at least 27 other farms should not be eaten by children.
The scale of the scandal has since expanded. “We are still estimating the number of farms which have been affected, and the analysis of 600 samples is still ongoing,” a spokesman for the NWVA said.
Facing the prospect of huge losses, poultry farmers have turned on the companies implicated. Erik Hubers from the Dutch agricultural and horticultural association told Dutch broadcasters it appeared they had “mixed the illegal substance with a legal one to improve its effectiveness”.
The Netherlands has almost 1,000 lay hen factory farms producing 11bn eggs a year, of which more than half are exported, mainly to Germany.
Originally published on The Guardian
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