Eat Brazilian at your own risk
Many dangerous substances may be in the imported foods in our shops, according to EU Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) officials who carried out an inspection tour in Brazil last December.
They found numerous faults in the control of crop and livestock treatments and in testing for dangerous residues in produce from these treatments, and concluded that the authorities in Brazil cannot guarantee that the food they send to the EU is free of chemicals which are so dangerous that they are banned from farms in Europe.
Faults were found throughout the range of produce which Brazil exports to the EU — more than 470,000 tonnes of poultry meat, 270,000 tonnes of beef, 120,000 tonnes of apples, 40,000 tonnes of shrimps, 30,000 tonnes of papayas, 10,000 tonnes of honey, and 600 tonnes of eggs per year.
Inspectors were disappointed to find that the Brazilians had not rectified most of the deficiencies the FVO found during a 2003 inspection.
Now, the FVO has made new recommendations which the Brazilians must carry out to bring their food exports up to EU safety standards.
But EU officials admit that even if the Brazilian food safety authorities turn over a new leaf, it is doubtful if the food analysis laboratories required by the EU can be put in place in the short term.
And the Brazilians themselves say it will be November 2006 before they can complete an official list of all registered veterinary products used in Brazil, including details of how soon farm animals can be sold after treatment, without risk of residues dangerous to food consumers.
In the meantime, there are a number of dangers to EU citizens who eat food from Brazil. Of most worry, perhaps, is the easy availability of clenbuterol.
According to Ireland’s Food Safety Promotion Board, clenbuterol (which became known as angel dust when its use in Ireland was revealed in the 1980s) has caused more cases of chemically derived food poisoning in Europe than any other substance.
It is banned on farms in the EU since 1996, but farmers in Brazil can get it for treating horses, without a vet’s prescription. FVO inspectors fear it may be used on Brazilian cattle, in which it has a remarkable effect on the lean content of the carcass, significantly raising the sale price of an animal — it also makes the beef tough, and it’s dangerous for a farmer to handle, but these are minor considerations for unscrupulous operators.
And because Brazil’s control of veterinary medicines and their residues in food are so inadequate, by EU standards, there is a big clenbuterol question mark over Brazilian beef.
Nor was there any reassurance for the EU inspection team when they visited a Brazilian cattle farm. They saw a large stock of hormones and antibiotics, many of them without packaging or directions for use, and the farmer admitted he didn’t know the withdrawal period between last treatment and sale of animals.
It is also worrying that farmers or vets are not required to keep veterinary medicine records in Brazil.
Produce from Brazil is also linked to the scourge of antibiotic resistance, of which MRSA is the most feared consequence in Europe.
The FVO gives a clear warning on this: in their report on the Brazil inspection tour, they said, “The national approval of several antibiotic feed additives which have been expressly prohibited for such use in the EU may, in the absence of residue testing, result in an increased risk of transfer of antibiotic resistance from products derived from animals reared using these substances, to humans. This, in particular, could affect products derived from intensively reared animals”.
Consumers might be surprised to find that honey is one of the riskiest Brazilian foods, from the point of view of antibiotic residues. Honey bees in Brazil can be treated with powerful antibiotics such as oxytetracycline, sulphasoxazole, or trimethoprim, and no withdrawal time (before sale of honey) is specified in Brazil for treatments containing these antibiotics. EU testers found streptomycin in one Brazilian honey sample in 2004, and discovered last December that honey being exported to the EU is not being tested for contamination.
Zinc bacitracin and spiramycin are antibiotic feed additives prohibited in the EU because of the risk of antibiotic resistance in humans, but still authorised in Brazil. The inspectors found that, in general, there are no analytical methods available in Brazil for detecting residues of these substances, and they are not tested for in Brazil’s 2005 National Residue Control Plan.
Testing for dangerous residues in plant produce is equally unreliable in Brazil. Brazil’s control systems provide little assurance that apples and papayas exported to the EU will comply with EU safety legislation, according to the FVO. Private industry carries out analysis, but the produce is frequently exported before the analysis results are known.
There is no legal requirement for Brazilian growers to retain pesticide records, even though up to 30 pesticide applications are made to apples each growing season, and more than 10 applications are made to papaya crops.
Inspectors also found that Brazil has no testing in place for dangerous residues in eggs. Pigmeat was continuously exported to the EU as ships supplies in 2005, in contravention of EU animal health requirements (Brazilian pigmeat is banned on animal health grounds in the EU). The Brazilian authorities said they were not aware that EU legislation requires ships food supplies to comply with EU legislation.
