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.