Russia has tightened food imports from Germany and some other EU countries in the wake of the discovery of dangerous levels of dioxins in livestock and bird feed in some of these regions.
The Russian federal agriculture watchdog, Rosselkhoznadzor, requested official information from Germany and EU on steps taken by them to prevent the highly toxic dioxin from entering the human food chain, Russian media reported Saturday.
It also warned that in case of failure to provide such information “as soon as possible” Rosselkhoznadzor would “reserve the right to impose restrictive measures on deliveries of animal products to Russia from high-risk regions.”
German authorities have frozen sales of poultry, pork and eggs from more than 4,700 farms on Friday after tests showed the contamination of animal feed by cancer-causing dioxin.
On Saturday, a spokesman for Germany’s Agriculture Ministry confirmed that following the discovery that farm animals were fed with contaminated products, an overly high concentrations of cancer-causing dioxin was detected, for the first time, in samples of meat.
The spokesman who declined to be named said three chickens — out of 15 samples of chicken, turkey and pork meat that have been sent to the EU Commission — showed dioxin concentrations twice as high as the amount that was legally allowed, AP reported.
He, however, said the meat of the contaminated chickens was not sold and the consumption of the toxic at such a low contamination level would not be harmful in the short term.
SB/PKH/MMN – Press TV
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