Banned chemical found in food

Fairfax

DANGEROUS? A study has found a number of bok choy samples contain traces of endosulfan - a chemical banned because of the risk it poses to human health.

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A study has found residue of a banned chemical "acutely toxic to humans at high levels" in both cucumbers and bok choy.

The results released today by the New Zealand Food Safety Authority (NZFSA) looked at locally-produced and imported crops, which were prone to exceeding chemical limits, and found nine cucumber samples and one bok choy sample contained traces of endosulfan which was banned by Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA) in January last year.

The chemical which is banned in 62 countries was banned in New Zealand after ERMA decided the level of harm of continued use of the chemical, which is "acutely toxic to humans at high levels", exceeded any benefits of its continued use.

Of the ten results which tested positive none were a safety concern and the two highest readings were between 50 and 60 parts per billion, NZFSA adviser Paul Dansted said today.

The positive results could however suggest that growers were still using the banned chemical, he said.

"The fact that we found the residues at all seem to indicate something is going on, and particularly the higher findings suggest the chemical might have been used after the ERMA prohibition," Dr Dansted said.

Investigators were following up on the detections, and if growers were found to have used the banned chemical they face being audited at their own cost, he said.

The study by the Food Residue Surveillance Programme also found concerning levels of other chemical residues in bok choy with 10 out of 23 samples containing levels of the fungicide chlorothalonil or the insecticide thiamethoxam over the allowable limit.

While the levels of chemicals found in bok choy were not a safety risk they were still a concern, Dr Dansted said.

"Although our safety assessments show that an average-sized adult weighing 70kg could eat 1.7 kilos a day of the bok choy with the highest residue for the whole of their life with no effect, this level of non-compliance is concerning," he said.

Chemical standards had been breached because growers had been confused over how to classify bok choy and many had mistakenly considered bok choy as brassicas instead of leafy vegetables, which have a much lower MRL.

"This understandable confusion has led to fairly widespread non-compliance," Dr Dansted said.

NZFSA was working with Horticulture New Zealand to inform growers of the correct use of agricultural chemicals on bok choy, he said.

Samples for other crops contained non-compliant levels of the insecticides methamidophos and thiacloprid in four samples of New Zealand grown cucumbers, while two samples of imported oranges contained the fungicide imazalil at non-compliant levels.

- NZPA