WASHINGTON (FNS) -- Poultry, egg and catfish producers in the South are under government orders to test their products for the presence of the carcinogen dioxin, after the presence of the toxin was traced to some animal feed.
oultry plants were temporarily shut down in Arkansas until what are already only trace levels of dioxin in birds dissipated to amounts considered to be nonthreatening.
"We started running tests immediately," said a spokesman for Tyson Foods, Springdale, Ark., which had to stop shipping from one of three slaughter facilities to which contaminated feed was destined. Tyson has 40 such facilities and the one affected plant represents a fraction of its production.
Dioxin is considered to be a carcinogen at high levels. Although the levels detected were considered to be minuscule, they were still above the one part per trillion or greater level allowed by the government. This standard is a temporary one; the government is currently reviewing limits set on toxins in food. FDA and USDA officials said no catfish, eggs or poultry made it into the marketplace with higher than allowable dioxin levels.
The dioxin-contaminated feed was traced to two Arkansas animal feed manufacturers that use clay in soybean meal to keep the feed from sticking together. The clay came from a mine in Sledge, Miss., and its use has since been discontinued. The contaminated feed is estimated to represent less than 1% of the national production of such feeds, according to the USDA.
The government announced earlier this month that it detected dioxin in the feed. Testing programs were set up for egg and poultry producers, which allowed the industry to continue shipping. The FDA originally ordered the catfish industry to stop shipping until it could comply with government dioxin testing protocol. The industry, comprised of 1,300 mostly small- to medium-sized companies, said the protocol was too unwieldy and costly to comply with. The two sides developed a compromise testing program that went into effect July 20.
