Brussels, 11/07/2002 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday, the day after the Standing Committee for the Food Chain and Animal Health met, the European Commission indicated though a spokesperson that the MPA-hormones contamination in feed and food products for pigs in the Netherlands affair, was in danger of spreading.
Up to now it was known that the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium were affected. On Thursday afternoon, Commissioner David Byrne's spokesman indicated that pigs that could have been infected with MPA had been exported to France (200 heads), in Italy (2000) and Germany (500) and that processed products that were potentially contaminated had been sent to the United Kingdom and Luxembourg. Wednesday evening following a meeting of the Standing Committee for the Food Chain and Animal Health, the European Commission has asked the Netherlands to make sure that they block all farms and feed producers potentially involved in the incident and has to circulate immediately a full list of all these farms and feed producers. The Netherlands has also been requested to immediately communicate all test results obtained to the Commission and the Member States on an on-going basis. All Member States will continue to trace potentially affected feed and food, block establishments concerned and test possibly affected products. They will also verify if domestic companies were clients of the Belgian company Bioland and suspected as being the cause of the contamination. The Commission called on Belgium (Bioland HQ is in Belgium) and Ireland, which would have supplied Bioland with waste from pharmaceutical companies containing the banned hormone to send any new information through the European Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed and to continue their investigation. In the fall-out the Commission is calling on all Member States to verify if pharmaceutical waste on their territory is disposed of correctly.