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Waiter, there’s a phthalate in my soup!
Industrial chemicals such as pesticides, PCBs and flame retardants have been
found in many food dishes in Europe, including fish.
Industrial chemicals such as
pesticides, PCBs and flame retardants have been found in food consumed
throughout Europe — from dairy products to meat and fish — according to a
WWF report released today.
The new report, Chain of Contamination: the food link, shows that food is a
crucial link in a global chain of contamination that begins with the manufacture
of chemicals and ends with their unwelcome appearance in our blood, with a
potential risk of developing harmful diseases. According to the report, the same
cocktail of hazardous chemicals has been detected in wildlife and the
environment.
“Being at the top of the food chain, humans are particularly exposed to
chemicals in food,” said Professor Jan-Ĺke Gustafsson, coordinator of
CASCADE, a European network focusing on endocrine disrupting chemicals in food,
and who is supporting the WWF report.
“As some of these chemicals are similar to hormones, they interfere with
our endocrine system and may be a risk factor for diseases like obesity,
different forms of cancer and diabetes as well as reduced fertility.”
The WWF report reveals the results of analysis carried out on 27 samples of
different food items purchased in supermarkets in seven EU countries — the UK,
Italy, Spain, Greece, Sweden, Finland and Poland. Food items tested include
dairy products (milk, butter and cheese), meat (sausages, bacon, chicken
breasts, ham and salami), fish (salmon and tuna), bread, honey and olive oil.
The samples were analyzed for eight different groups of man-made chemicals —
organochlorine pesticides, PCBs, brominated flame retardants, perfluorinated
chemicals, phthalates, organotins, alkylphenols and artificial musks.
The tests found potentially harmful synthetic chemicals in all of the
analyzed samples, ranging from phthalates in olive oil, cheeses and meats,
banned organochlorine pesticides in fish and reindeer meat, artificial musks and
organotins in fish, and flame retardants in meats and cheeses.
While WWF stresses that people will not necessarily become ill by eating
these food items, the global organization is seriously concerned over the
potential effects of long-term, low levels exposure to chemicals in the diet,
especially on the developing foetus, infants and young children.
“It is shocking to see that even a healthy diet leads to the daily uptake
of so many contaminants,” said Sandra Jen, Director of WWF’s DetoX Campaign.
“Breaking this global chain of contamination will require a strong commitment
from EU politicians to human health and the environment.”
Food is one of the most important routes for human exposure to pollutants,
notably the ones that persist and accumulate in the environment, such as DDT,
PCBs and brominated flame retardants. But chemicals also enter the environment
in many other ways: as a result of leakages during manufacture; transport or
storage; direct applications; and a wide variety of uses in products such as
computers, TVs and toiletries.
This autumn, the European Parliament will vote on the new EU chemicals
legislation (REACH) which was designed to protect people and wildlife from
harmful man-made chemicals. However, over the period of its development,
industry lobbying has resulted in a much weakened proposal, which could be as
ineffective as the current legislation, according to WWF.
The global conservation organization is urging the EU to adopt a much
stronger version of REACH. European legislators must ensure that REACH delivers
sufficient safety data on chemicals in order to identify the most hazardous
ones. And chemicals of very high concern, including hormone disrupting
chemicals, should be replaced with safer alternatives whenever available.
More information:
 See: WWF- www.panda.org
Reproduced with permission from WWF. © [2006] WWF- World Wide Fund For
Nature (Formerly World Wildlife Fund). All rights reserved.
Noemi Cano, WWF DetoX Communications Manager
Tel: +32 2 743 88 06
Email: ncano@wwfepo.org
Olivier van Bogaert, Senior Press Officer
WWF International
Tel: +41 22 364 9554
Email: ovanbogaert@wwfint.org
- Organochlorine pesticides are used in agriculture; PCBs in electrical
equipment; brominated flame retardants in plastics, textiles and electronic
appliances; perfluorinated chemicals in the manufacture of non-stick coatings
and fast food packaging; phthalates to soften plastic; organotins in marine
antifoulants; alkylphenols in detergents; and artificial musks as fragrance
chemicals in cleaning products and cosmetics.
- • Many of the compounds are found in a concentration range of 0.1 to 10
ng/g,
with the exception of phthalates for which typical concentrations are two orders
of magnitude higher. Contamination with organochlorines is low but frequent.
PCBs have been found in all samples analysed, and ppDDE -a metabolite of DDT- in
16 out of 27 samples, with the highest concentrations in fish. Brominated flame
retardants have been found in 19 of 26 samples, with the highest concentrations
in meat. Phthalates were found in 16 of 21 samples. In few samples nonylphenols,
artificial musks and perfluorchemicals (PFOS) were found in addition.
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