Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-05-Speech-4-005"
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"en.20020905.1.4-005"2
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". – Mr President, I welcome this opportunity to report on the recent contamination of the feed and food chain with medroxy-progesterone acetate, or MPA as it is commonly known.
In response to the situation, the Standing Committee agreed the following measures. All animals fed with highly contaminated feed would be kept under strict official control. Member States would test individual animals fed with the highly contaminated feed and only release them for consumption if results confirmed that MPA could not be detected. The authorities in the Netherlands chose to destroy pigs fed with the highly contaminated feed, thus removing them entirely from the food chain.
All samples from animals fed with the low contamination feed tested negative for the presence of MPA and the restriction was therefore lifted. Several hundred samples of glucose syrup, molasses and feed have been analysed and, as a result, thousands of tonnes of contaminated raw materials and feeding stuffs have been recalled, seized and destroyed.
The next meeting of the Standing Committee is planned for 11 September. At this meeting, the measures taken by the Member States in relation to the MPA contamination will be reviewed. However, we can already conclude that the measures were successful in limiting the potential risk to the public. They were also very successful in averting any unilateral restrictions by Member States or third countries on trade, particularly from the Netherlands.
Clearly we have to learn the lessons from the contamination and avoid any repetition. At the Agriculture Council of 15 July 2002, I repeated my call for the Member States’ competent authorities for food and feed to exercise stricter control to ensure a high level of consumer health protection.
Feed and food operators need to be more aware of their responsibilities in this area. We all consider the food law a major step forward for the protection of human health. In that context, the responsibilities of feed and food operators are clearly established. Feed operators must ensure that the raw materials they buy are safe.
In the very near future the Commission will be proposing a major reform of the Community’s system of official controls, in order to create a harmonised, coordinated and more effective system of controls on food and feed.
In addition, the Food and Veterinary Office is urgently investigating the operation and control of the animal feed sector. Its aim will be to pinpoint how recent contamination incidents have been allowed to occur and to identify the action that needs to be taken to prevent similar incidents arising in the future.
Furthermore, in order to complete the legal framework for the entire feed sector, the Commission will present a new proposal on feed hygiene at the earliest opportunity.
We intend to put forward general hygiene rules for the production, distribution and feeding of animals and also to enlarge the scope of the registration system for feed operations.
Under the current arrangements, only establishments dealing with certain feed additives are registered. Clearly this is not sufficient to ensure traceability of all feed materials.
I must stress that the Commission takes this incident very seriously indeed. It is simply unacceptable that hormones should find their way into the food and feed chains.
In this context, a positive list of feed materials is being looked at with a view to increasing consumer protection, as Parliament itself has requested. I am pleased to say that the feasibility study you requested is nearly complete. You will receive the report with our analysis before the end of this year.
At the same time, the question arises as to whether Community legislation in relation to the waste sector is sufficiently stringent and properly implemented. I would remind you that had existing waste legislation been correctly applied in the case of MPA, it would have prevented such an incident. I alerted my colleague, Mrs Wallström, as soon as it became apparent that the problem involved pharmaceutical waste. Discussions have taken place with waste experts from the Member States and are continuing.
One lesson we can learn from this incident is the need for closer coordination and cooperation between the authorities responsible for the waste sector and those responsible for feed and food safety.
The authorities of the Member States involved in this affair have been asked to provide all relevant information to enable the case to be assessed from an environmental point of view. On the basis of that assessment, the Commission will take any further action deemed necessary.
Finally, it goes without saying that incidents such as this only serve to undermine our efforts to restore consumer confidence in our food supply. We need to redouble our efforts, in terms not just of legislation but also better enforcement and control, to make such incidents a thing of the past.
So, having found ourselves in this regrettable situation, what action did we take?
First, my services called an emergency meeting of the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health on 10 July, with further meetings following on 16 and 24 July. These were in addition to the continuous contacts between the Commission services and their counterparts in the Member States.
These efforts were very successful in reducing the risk to public health to a minimum. However, this success was achieved at a very high cost. Very substantial quantities of food and feed had to be traced and destroyed. The impact has been particularly severe in the Netherlands.
Investigations into the factors which allowed the contamination to take place are, of course, ongoing. However, two factors in particular already stand out: firstly, the application of Community legislation on the movement and disposal of pharmaceutical waste, and secondly, the carelessness of certain feed producers in their selection of raw material suppliers.
Investigations into the onward distribution of the contaminated glucose syrup revealed that it had been delivered to feed mills and traders and, to a limited extent, to the food industry.
The contaminated feed was produced mostly for pigs, but also, to a much lesser extent, for cattle, poultry, zoo animals and pets.
This contaminated feed could be separated into two groups: a lesser quantity of highly contaminated feed distributed to 57 farms in the Netherlands and larger quantities with a low level of contamination."@en1
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