Source of dioxin-tainted eggs confirmed as the "Hongzhang" laying hen farm in Fangyuan; source of contamination unknown, investigation to be expanded

The dioxin-contaminated laying hen farm has been found! The Food and Drug Administration, together with the Council of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Administration, held a press conference at 7 p.m. today (the 26th) to explain the first round of test results, pointing out that the contaminated farm is the "Hongzhang" laying hen farm in Fangyuan, Changhua. The Food and Drug Administration announced that the eggs of the two laying hen farms, Junyi and Caiyuan, will have their sealing lifted effective immediately, while the eggs and chickens of the Hongzhang livestock farm will all be destroyed and culled within the next two days, and incinerated.

However, although the source of contamination was found, the cause of contamination was not identified. The Council of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Administration released the test results for feed, water and air, all of which were below the standard values. Li Junzhang, director of the Environmental Trace Toxic Substances Research Center at National Cheng Kung University, who was responsible for testing the dioxin-contaminated eggs, said that it may be necessary to trace back to the relevant monitoring data from before February in order to confirm what the previous rearing environment and conditions were like. "Asking now where the contamination source is, we actually still do not know."

Wang Zhongshu, deputy director of the Livestock Department of the Council of Agriculture, said that the previously conducted soil testing has not yet been released, and in the next two days expanded sampling will also be carried out on the surrounding environment and formula ingredients. "Whether human-caused or environmental factors, follow-up tracking and monitoring will still need to be carried out."

Comparing contamination fingerprints, the contaminated laying hen farm is determined to be the Hongzhang livestock farm

Wang Zhongshu said that the Council of Agriculture sampled eggs and feed at the three chicken farms suspected to be contamination sources, while the Environmental Protection Administration sampled environmental media. The egg samples were sent to two testing units for testing and cross-comparison. Among them, the test results from National Cheng Kung University showed that all three were below the standard value of 2.5 picograms/gram fat. The egg test results for the Caiyuan, Junyi and Hongzhang farms were 0.598 picograms/gram fat, 0.404 picograms/gram fat and 1.882 picograms/gram fat, respectively.

However, according to the three egg samples tested by the National Laboratory of Foods and Drugs, Hongzhang's eggs exceeded the standard both times, at 2.88 picograms/gram fat and 3.34 picograms/gram fat respectively, both exceeding the national standard value of 2.5 picograms/fat. "The test results for the Hongzhang laying hen farm exceeded the standard, and we determine that the Hongzhang laying hen farm was contaminated by dioxin," Wang Zhongshu said.

But the Cheng Kung University tests showed all three farms' eggs were below the standard value, while the two samples from the National Laboratory of Foods and Drugs detected that "Hongzhang exceeded the standard." What exactly caused the discrepancy between the two parties' test results? Li Junzhang said that although the test samples all came from these three farms, the samples obtained by Cheng Kung University and the National Laboratory of Foods and Drugs were still different eggs, and perhaps individual differences among the chickens caused the difference in test results. Xu Chaokai, deputy director of the Food Division of the Food and Drug Administration, also said that although there was some slight discrepancy in the results detected by the two parties, "because the 'contamination fingerprint' of the Hongzhang test was similar to the 'contamination fingerprint' of the initial test, Hongzhang is therefore confirmed as the contaminated farm."