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BMJ 2002;324:1416 ( 15 June )
 

News extra

Organic meat products contaminated with carcinogenic herbicide

Annette Tuffs Heidelberg

A storage depot in east Germany has been identified as the source of several hundred tonnes of organic animal feed contaminated with the herbicide nitrofen.

Before the reunification of Germany in 1990, the depot, in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, was used for storing the herbicide. The depot had apparently not been properly cleaned when it was converted to store corn feed for animals on organic farms.

Since the discovery by a baby food manufacturer of nitrofen in organic meat products, large numbers of chicken and turkey meat products from organic farms in many German states have been found to contain potentially dangerous levels of nitrofen (more than 0.01 mg/kg).

The European Union banned nitrofen 14 years ago after animal experiments had shown that it caused cancer of the liver and pancreas in mice and produced defects in embryos.

The actual risk of consuming contaminated food might not be high, say food chemists, but a spokesperson for the International Agency of Research on Cancer, Lyons, said there are few data on the chemical’s effects in people, because it was withdrawn shortly after its introduction.

"This is not a scandal for ecological farming," claims the Green federal minister Renate Kuenast, responsible for agriculture and consumer protection, and she points out that the farmers are not to blame. Outdated systems, poor communication, and delayed warnings from firms and state agencies after the contamination was discovered at the beginning of the year were responsible, she said.

Over the past few weeks the names of the organic farms and producers involved have been published, and some products, such as organically produced eggs, have been recalled. The corn producer GS Agri, which owns the contaminated depot, seems to have broken the law when it neglected to carry out routine checks of the corn. It is also said to have continued selling its corn when it already knew about the nitrofen contamination.

The depot in Mecklenburg is probably not the only one to have been affected by nitrofen contamination, points out agriculture minister Till Backhaus. Samples taken from corn carried by GS Agri vehicles did not come from Mecklenburg. Other sources have not yet been identified, but it is thought that contamination could have occurred during transport.
 
 

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