The discovery of a duck contaminated with an excessive level of dioxins in July in Greater Kaohsiung’s Sanmin District (三民) was an isolated case, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Deputy Director-General Chiang Yu-mei (姜郁美) said yesterday.
Chiang made the announcement at a press conference also attended by representatives from the Council of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), amid criticism that the FDA had sought to cover up the findings.
“On July 28, samples from one of the three duck carcasses collected by local officials from traditional markets in Pingtung City and Kaohsiung’s Sanmin and Fongshan (鳳山) districts respectively were found to contain dioxin levels at 15.1 picograms of the WHO’s toxicity equivalent per gram of fat [pg WHO-TEQ/g], about 8.5 times the nation’s maximum permissible level for poultry of 1.75pg WHO-TEQ/g,” Chiang said.
Chiang said the contaminated duck was among the 1,400 duck carcasses provided to a meat vendor in Sanmin on the day of the inspection by a supplier who purchased the animals from a number of duck farms.
“In order to be sure, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the council and the EPA reached a consensus at an emergency meeting called the next day to impose mobile control measures on eight duck farms that had sold ducks to the supplier within the last weeks before the inspection, as well as examine the ducks’ conditions, feed and the farms’ neighboring environments,” Chiang said.
Chiang said while all the examination results — including 10 feed and 25 environmental samples — came back normal, the FDA subsequently conducted a random sampling of 20 ducks sold in Greater Kaohsiung, Pingtung County and Greater Tainan, none of which were found to have abnormal dioxin levels.
“Based on these findings, we concluded that the dioxin-tainted duck was just an isolated case,” Chiang said, adding that the dioxin levels in a total of 60 ducks inspected by relevant health departments in 2004 and last year were all under the legal limit.
Lee Ching-chang (李俊璋), a professor from National Cheng Kung University’s Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, who oversaw the testing of the contaminated duck, also dismissed the cover-up allegations on the sidelines of the press conference.
“After the duck was discovered to have dioxin levels of 15.1 pg WHO-TEQ/g, I then followed our standard protocol and asked a different laboratory analyst to run a second test, which found the levels to be 15.4 pg WHO-TEQ/g,” Lee said.
Lee said the samples were later sent to the Taiwan Agricultural Chemicals and Toxic Substances Research Institute for a third test, the results of which came out on Wednesday and showed dioxin levels of 15.6 pg WHO-TEQ/g.
“We just wanted to make sure everything was double-checked,” Lee said, but added that inspectors were unable to identify the sources of the contamination.
Taiwan has dealt with three major incidents of dioxin contamination in the past decade, including the one in Changhua County’s Siansi Township (線西) in 2005, in which about 28,000 laying ducks were culled after more than 1 million duck eggs were found to contain excessive dioxin levels, and an incident in New Taipei City’s Bali Township (八里) in 2006 when 50 sheep were slaughtered because of abnormal levels of dioxin residue in their bodies.
In 2009, about 9,000 ducks raised on a farm in Greater Kaohsiung’s Daliao District (大寮) were culled after they were contaminated with a high level of dioxins following the illegal dumping of steel furnace slag and foundry ash near the farm.
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