Chemicals 'permeating' food chain
Harmful chemicals are said to exist in foodstuffs such as cheese
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Thursday, 21, Sep 2006 10:18
Harmful man-made chemicals have permeated our food chain, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
As well as the food chain, the chemicals are said to also be in the air and electrical products that people use.
WWF biomonitoring over the last five years found toxic chemicals in the blood of 352 people tested and eight man-made chemicals were found in all of the foods analysed.
Among the results were phthalates found in olive oil, cheeses and meats, and flame retardants existing in meats and cheeses.
None of the eight chemicals in the study are found naturally in food and they have all been linked to health problems such as reduced IQ, genital deformities in baby boys, certain cancers and problems with hormones.
Elizabeth Salter Green, head of the WWF-UK toxics programme warned: "Our food is contaminated, our air is contaminated and our bodies are contaminated. Something is desperately wrong here and we need to resolve the problem."
Paul Green, director of campaigns WWF-UK, added that although each item of food tested is "probably safe to eat on its own", the combined long-term effect of eating lots of contaminated food "contributes significantly to our body burden of chemicals".
Although the WWF acknowledges the "excellent work" carried out by the UK's Food Standards Agency (FSA), it believes that existing and proposed European-wide legislation is inadequate to target the problem.
The European parliament is set to vote on new EU chemicals legislation (Reach) this autumn, but the WWF argues that industry lobbying has weakened the proposal so much that it would be little improvement on current legislation.
MEPs are now being encouraged by the WWF to push for legislation that would ensure chemicals of very high concern, including hormone disrupting chemicals, are replaced with safer alternatives whenever available.
Ms Salter Green added: "If the new Reach legislation is not effective in controlling harmful chemicals, our generation will leave behind a legacy of health problems and pollution to the people and wildlife of the world. We must not allow that to happen."