Banned antibiotic ‘not in chickens’

Dublin: Consumers have been assured by the Department of Agriculture and Food in Dublin that no traces of the banned antibiotic, nitrofuran, were found in tests carried out on chickens here last year and none have been discovered this year.

An investigation is underway in the North to try to discover how the banned antibiotic was found in organic chicken processed at the Moy Park food processing plant in Dungannon, Co Tyrone.

Moy Park, which has instigated a product recall, estimates 20,000 chickens from one farm were in the batch under investigation. About 20% of these were sold in the Republic. But not all of that was organically produced.

The chickens are no longer on sale but some may still be in home freezers. Any chickens from the affected batch should be returned to the retailer or thrown away, according to the Food Safety Authority of Ireland.

After the problem was detected in routine tests carried out by the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development in Northern Ireland, the Food Standards Agency there and the firm said the risk to humans was very low.

Labour Party spokesperson on food safety, Dr Mary Upton, said nitrofurans are antibiotics, used most widely in intensively- reared animals.

They are banned in the EU for food producing animals, because of concerns about toxicity and cancer in consumers.

“We need to have more intensive testing for banned substances,” said Dr Upton.

Green Party deputy leader Cllr Mary White called for more testing of products and full traceability following the discovery in the North.