VWA Food Safety On Dioxin

The Dutch General Health Authority

Either you are an entrepreneur or you have a food factory than I guess you know it well. HACCP, the method to ensure the food safety implemented since 14 December 1995. It is still applied only for industry for now and other parties will have to follow later. However, for a long time it seemed that HACCP existed for industry sector only. The preceding parties in the supply chain must however also implement the method.

On 14 March 2007 the VWA published article concerning eel. The eel usually contain too high concentration of dioxin, especially the wild eel which appears to be containing too much dioxin. Dioxin is a substance that in the long term would lead to detrimental impact on the public health.

HACCP put forward a precise method of work. Dioxin which spill out to the environment would be difficult to handle. Consequently, there is no correcting measure could be taken. Except then prevent the supplier obtaining the products. Other way is to stop catching fish which possibly contaminated.

Food safety, the testing and risk assessment institution

Dioxin is a substance that in the recent years usually associated with unsafe-driven for food. It is proved to be seriously hazardous for the fishery sector and the food industry. According to the VWA research, 2 % of the eel contain too much dioxin.

Dioxin is a substance which is released by oxidation of chlorine in the atmosphere. It is a toxic substance. Excessive dioxin can cause danger for the public health. The dioxin would pile up in human bodies, as a result would be damaging nerve system, body metabolism and the lever function. It also raises chance of cancer.

A quantity of ten milligram dioxin is already deadly. Such deadly concentration seldom appears without prevention. Often, dioxin diluted through some process.

The dioxin crisis known in Belgium which dominated the whole press in 1999, led to a lot of pulling back products action. Dioxin came through the as been cattle fodder and PCB’s in cattle fodder. Subsequently it ended in human food. In 0ctober 2004, dioxin appears again from unexpected angle in news. Inside milk was found high contamination of dioxin. Source of the dioxin? Marls clay is used to sort out the potatoes. The peels of these potatoes were processed in the cattle fodder. Those peels brought the dioxin into the cattle fodder and then became in the milk.

Directly after the dioxin crisis, there has been immediate worked for a further analysis of the quality control in the animal food sector. Supermarket chains gave ultimatum as they might face millions euro possible damage as a result of polluted product. The damages possibly originated from the failure of the first chain of cattle feeding industries. These incidences resulted in obligation to provide strong guarantees. Differently, the supermarkets chain shifted the purchase to foreign dairy and meat products.

Another aspect of those million claims that the cattle feeding industries was the one to blame. Also for primary products that products liability has legalized for some time. That means that every grower, trader and producer in the feeding chain is responsible if there is something wrong with the food. That also applies to the shops. Seeing as in the year 2000 the ministry of public health, well-being and sport recommended consumers not to consume eel from wide river. Those eels also contain high contamination of dioxin. Every couple of year records added inside the 'dioxine' book. Who take the real correcting measure now?

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