Fipronil crackdown fails across Taiwan, China: another egg shop in Taipei finds excessive residue in eggs

In response to the fipronil egg incident that worried the public earlier, after confirming the problem had arisen, the Council of Agriculture immediately carried out sampling at all 1459 laying hen farms across Taiwan, China, ultimately confirming that only 45 farms failed, and subsequently made fipronil a standing item in veterinary drug random testing in order to reassure the public. However, today the Taipei City Government published the results of its random testing of egg distribution channels, and again found that eggs from the "Zhenkun Livestock Farm" distributed by Yongji Egg Shop tested at 10 ppb, an excessive level of fipronil.

Egg shop failed to proactively report non-compliant information, fined 30,000 yuan

In addition, regarding the egg shop's failure to proactively report non-compliant information about the source farm on the previous occasion, Wang also stressed that a fine of 30,000 yuan had been imposed on the operator in accordance with the Taipei City Food Safety Self-Governance Ordinance. At present, eggs from the six farms in Yongji Egg Shop are being tested under high standards, and only eggs from Tainan City's Zhenkun Livestock Farm were found to have a fipronil residue problem; the Tainan City Government Agriculture Bureau and Health Bureau have been notified to jointly handle the source contamination situation.

After receiving the notification, the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine of the Council of Agriculture also stated that it had already inspected the 30,000 chickens on the farm, resampled eggs and sent them in person to the testing unit, and was investigating the drug use situation and tracing the downstream flow of the eggs; it has currently imposed movement controls on Zhenkun Livestock Farm and sent samples for testing, so as to safeguard egg safety.

However, before fipronil was detected at that farm, the Council of Agriculture had already confirmed at the end of last month that testing of all 1,459 laying hen farms nationwide was complete, and claimed a failure rate of only 3%, with 45 farms found to have excessive levels; in addition, 94,336 kg (about 1,574,640 eggs) were recalled and sealed, and after the farms successively passed retesting, the movement controls were announced as lifted.

Problem with drug controls? Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine noncommittal

Under the official nationwide containment policy, another case of excessive fipronil has appeared; does this mean there is a problem with veterinary drug controls? Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine Deputy Director-General Shi Taihua pointed out, "It may be caused by a sampling problem, because local agencies took only 10 eggs out of the whole farm's 30,000 eggs, making the sampling uneven," therefore, on sampling methods, there will be further communication with local agencies.

In addition, with another case of excessive fipronil reported today, does this mean that this type of drug is still being used illegally? In response, Shi was noncommittal, only stressing that when inspection units arrived at the site they did indeed find several empty cans of unknown chemicals, which have now been handed over to Tainan prosecutors and investigators, and that they would quickly test what drugs were used on the farm.

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