Egg sales suspended nationwide after finding of pesticide-tainted eggs
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Officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs collect eggs laid by hens at a farm in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, Tuesday, whose owner is suspected of using a banned insecticide. Yonhap
Eggs written 08 and 08LSH contaminated: food safety ministry
By Lee Kyung-min
The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said Tuesday that eggs with the coding 08 and 08LSH printed on them were produced at farms that used a banned insecticide or used a legal one over the maximum amount allowable.
“We identified the eggs by matching the code on them. We are conducting additional tests to determine whether the eggs have been contaminated with 27 harmful substances. Those that fail to meet the safety standard will be discarded immediately,” a ministry official said.
Every egg has a production code printed on them. The first two digits indicate where they were produced in 17 provincial areas.
Those labeled 08 come from Gyeonggi Province. The last three digits or letters identify the name of the farm.
The announcement came 18 hours after the country’s major discount store chains suspended the sales of eggs nationwide after a government inspection found a possibly hazardous insecticide a day earlier at a hen farm in Namyangju, Gyeonggi Province.
The ministry said another farm in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province, also failed to meet the safety standard.
A Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs inspection Monday found that the farm in Namyangju —housing over 80,000 hens — used the toxic insecticide fipronil.
The same day, the farm in Gwangju with 60,000 hens was found to have an infestation of mites, which had over the maximum allowable level of bifenthrin, an insecticide used primarily against some types of ants, inside them.
The agriculture ministry said it is unclear how many eggs have been contaminated, adding that it is conducting a three-day inspection until Thursday of farms that have over 3,000 hens to identify ones that have used the banned insecticide or excessive amounts of permissible ones.
As of last December, the ministry said out of 1,060 farms that have over 3,000 hens, about 780, or 73 percent, are government-approved “organic” farms. Up to 90 percent of eggs are believed to come from such farms.
The Namyangju farm produced 25,000 eggs per day, which it provided to five buyers who sold them to retailers.
The public scare over eggs contaminated by insecticides is growing because the farm was government-approved for its organic eggs.
Fipronil, the toxic insecticide, is commonly used to remove fleas, lice and ticks from cats and dogs, but is banned from use on products intended for human consumption including hens and chickens.
The country has no regulation punishing famers who use it. Many farmers say using the substance is inevitable due to the summer heat wave when the number of insects spiked, ending up infecting or even killing their livestock.
Using it is also a much cheaper way than building a better environment in which animals are raised, they added.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), fipronil is considered “moderately hazardous,” but when consumed in large quantities it can seriously damage the kidneys, liver and thyroid gland.
Major retailers, including Home plus, Lotte Mart, E-Mart and Nonghyup Hanaro, said they decided to suspend the sales of eggs pending the results of an ongoing government inspection into poultry farms.
Toxicologist Kim Sun-cheun said the amount detected was not enough to cause an unnecessary scare according to the Codex Alimentarius, an international listing for standards on food and food production, recognized by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization.
Following the codex is not compulsory in Korea.
“The amount found was 0.0363mg/kg, which exceeded 0.02mg/kg. However, it takes at least 0.6 mg to affect a healthy adult. I think the government needs to promptly set up regulations now, but I think the public should not worry too much,” Kim said.
The same pesticide has been found in eggs in 17 European countries since the health scare broke out earlier this month.
Home plus said it decided to stop selling eggs as a "precautionary measure." CU, the nation’s largest convenience store chain with 10,000 outlets, as well as GS25 and 7-Eleven, said they have withdrawn eggs and egg food products from their shelves.