[Food contamination by PCBs/dioxins in Belgium: analysis of an accident with improbable health consequences]

Abstract

In 1999, a food crisis broke out in Belgium as a result of the accidental contamination of animal feed by PCBs (polychlorobiphenyls) and dioxins (mainly furans). The analysis of the database from the PCB food monitoring program implemented after the discovery of incident confirms that the contamination has been very limited, both in time (peak at the end of January) and in the food chain (affecting less than 0.5% of the farms in the whole country). The extreme scenario of a doubling of the PCB and dioxin body burden as envisaged in "Nature" (401: 231-232, 1999) could have been conceivable only in the case of farmers who would have consumed their own products. But even in such an extreme case, this would mean going back to the levels of PCB and dioxin body burden of subjects living in the 1980s or of those regularly eating contaminated seafood.