The 2017 fipronil eggs contamination is an incident in Europe and Asia involving the spread of fipronil insecticide which contaminated human consumed

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adu ...

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

s and egg products.

History

Issue

Chicken eggs Humans and human ancestors have scavenged and eaten animal eggs for millions of years. Humans in Southeast Asia had domesticated chickens and harvested their eggs for food by 1,500 BCE. The most widely consumed eggs are those of fowl, especia ...

were found to contain fipronil and distributed to 15

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

countries, Switzerland, and

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

. Approximately 700,000 eggs are thought to have reached shelves in the UK alone. Fipronil contaminated eggs may have been sold for a long time prior to the discovery of high levels. Fipronil was used in a remedy to destroy the poultry mite.

Initial actions

Authorities in the Netherlands were alerted by an anonymous source in November 2016 that fipronil was being used in

poultry farm Poultry farming is the form of animal husbandry which raises domesticated birds such as chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese to produce meat or eggs for food. Poultry – mostly chickens – are farmed in great numbers. More than 60 billion chic ...

s, but failed to communicate the findings. In July/August 2017 millions of

chicken egg Humans and human ancestors have scavenged and eaten animal eggs for millions of years. Humans in Southeast Asia had domesticated chickens and harvested their eggs for food by 1,500 BCE. The most widely consumed eggs are those of fowl, especia ...

s were blocked from sale or withdrawn from the market in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

and

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

after elevated levels of fipronil were discovered by the Dutch food and product safety board. About 180 Dutch farms were temporarily shut down. In early August,

Aldi Aldi (stylised as ALDI) is the common company brand name of two German multinational family-owned discount supermarket chains operating over 10,000 stores in 20 countries. The chain was founded by brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht in 1946, when ...

reported removing all eggs for sale in their German stores as a precaution.

Investigations

Because the use of fipronil is illegal in the production of food for human consumption in Europe, a

criminal investigation Criminal investigation is an applied science that involves the study of facts that are then used to inform criminal trials. A complete criminal investigation can include searching, interviews, interrogations, evidence collection and preservat ...

was initiated. Early investigation led to two companies: ChickFriend, a provider of pest control services in the

, suspected of knowingly using and selling DEGA-16 mixed with fipronil to hundreds of chicken farmers, and Poultry Vision in

, accused of selling DEGA-16 mixed with fipronil to ChickFriend. DEGA-16 is a cleaning and sanitising natural product that is approved to clean chicken stables. The Dutch owners of ChickFriend were arrested during a large scale operation conducted by Dutch law enforcement agencies on 10 August. The first results of an investigation by Belgian police led to the discovery of of fipronil that Poultry Vision had imported from a chemical manufacturing company in

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

. The

Dutch Safety Board The Dutch Safety Board (DSB; nl, Onderzoeksraad voor Veiligheid, OVV, literally "Investigation Council for Safety") is an organisation based in The Hague, Netherlands.Namyangju Namyangju () is a city in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. To the east is Gapyeong County, to the west is Guri City, and to the north is Pocheon City. Namyangju-si was originally a southern part of Yangju-gun, but was separated into Namyangju-gu ...

, on 14 August 2017.

E-mart e-mart () is the largest retailer in South Korea. There were 160 stores across the country as of December 2016. It was founded on 12 November 1993 by Shinsegae as the first discount retailer in South Korea. E-Mart is the oldest and largest dis ...

, Homeplus, and

Lotte Mart Lotte Mart is a South Korean hypermarket that sells a variety of groceries, clothing, toys, electronics, and other goods, with headquarters in South Korea. Lotte Mart is a division of the Lotte Co., Ltd. which sells food and shopping services ...

stopped selling eggs temporarily on the same day. Scientific tests carried in Germany on imported eggs to

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

found that eight of twenty had traces of fipronil, and the Maltese were informed to take measures in limiting the consumption to not more than two eggs per day.

Reported fipronil concentrations

The

maximum residue limit The maximum residue limit (also maximum residue level, MRL), is the maximum amount of pesticide residue that is expected to remain on food products when a pesticide is used according to label directions, that will not be a concern to human health. ...

(MRL) of fipronil in eggs is set at the detection limit of 0.005 mg/kg within the European Union, as is outlined in Regulation (EC) No 396/2005 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 February 2005. Fipronil is classed as a WHO Class II moderately hazardous pesticide, and has a rat acute oral LD50 of 97 mg/kg. The Dutch food and product safety board (NVWA) reported that the test results of one batch of eggs originating from one poultry farm in the Netherlands exceeded the threshold of 0.72 mg/kg. Eggs containing fipronil values above this threshold could have possible negative health effects.{{Cite web, url=https://www.nvwa.nl/onderwerpen/biociden/fipronil-in-eieren/fipronil-vragen-en-antwoorden-consumenten, title=Vragen en antwoorden fipronil in eieren van leghennen voor consumenten, last=Overig, first=C&V, website=www.nvwa.nl, language=nl-NL, access-date=31 August 2017, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170812021919/https://www.nvwa.nl/onderwerpen/biociden/fipronil-in-eieren/fipronil-vragen-en-antwoorden-consumenten, archive-date=12 August 2017, url-status=dead

References

2017 in the Netherlands Adulteration Egg farming Food safety in the European Union Food safety scandals Scandals in the Netherlands 2017 disasters in the Netherlands 2017 disasters in Europe