Fipronil egg pesticide residue standard setting stirs up controversy, making risk communication even worse?
How should the fipronil residue standard for eggs be set? The EU set 5 ppb, the US set 30 ppb, and because Taiwan had no standard in the past, the machine detection value of 5 ppb was temporarily used as the residue standard. The Council of Agriculture held an expert meeting on September 8 and resolved to spend "one year" investigating the current state of fipronil residues in imported laying hen feed and the environment, and then decide whether to set a residue standard. But at the end of October it emerged that 20 days after the meeting, at the end of September, the Agricultural Chemicals and Toxic Substances Research Institute had already proposed a "10 ppb fipronil residue standard" recommendation; that recommendation had been sent to the Ministry of Health and Welfare for review by an expert meeting, and was criticized as a major policy U-turn.
Fei Wen-chi, director-general of the Agricultural Chemicals and Toxic Substances Research Institute, confirmed in an interview last Friday that the case had been submitted at the end of September, but "so far, I have not heard any news that the Food and Drug Administration is going to convene a meeting to review the fipronil residue standard." The next day (the 28th), it was revealed that eggs from Changhua's Baifu livestock farm were found to have fipronil residue of 17 ppb, and the Food and Drug Administration finally relented this morning (the 30th) during a report to the Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee, saying it would hold an expert meeting that afternoon, closed to media interviews.
Fipronil Egg Timeline
July 20 Belgium reported eggs exceeding the pesticide fipronil limit, and the scandal later spread globally
August 18 Food and Drug Administration: 10 eggs sampled, no fipronil contamination found
August 21 NewsMarket exclusively revealed that domestic eggs exceeded fipronil levels.
August 25 The Council of Agriculture conducted a nationwide survey of laying hen farms, 44 egg farms exceeded the limit, affecting 1.24 million laying hens
End of August The Council of Agriculture announced that follow-up retests had passed one after another, and the fipronil scandal temporarily came to an end
September 8 The Council of Agriculture held an expert meeting (livestreamed), to discuss whether a fipronil residue background value should be established; the meeting concluded that one year of research should be conducted before deciding whether to set a residue value or residue standard
September 18 Taipei City again found eggs from Tainan exceeding fipronil limits
October 25 China Times reported that at the end of September the Agricultural Chemicals and Toxic Substances Research Institute had directly sent a "10 ppb fipronil background value drafting standard" report to the Food and Drug Administration; NewsMarket reporters verified and confirmed the matter
October 28 A new case in Hsinchu, involving eggs from Changhua exceeding fipronil limits
October 30 The Food and Drug Administration held an expert meeting (closed) to discuss how to set the fipronil background residue value
From "one-year investigation" to "20-day proposal": why did the policy pace accelerate?
Why exactly did this gap appear between "more than 20 days" and "one year"? Council of Agriculture Deputy Ministers Chen Chi-chung and Huang Chin-cheng both said that indeed, at the meeting it was promised to spend one year collecting fipronil background values from domestic broiler and laying hen livestock farms, and only then discuss the residue standard; but only after the meeting did they learn that the Agricultural Chemicals and Toxic Substances Research Institute had already started early and collected relevant background value data. "I thought that since the institute already had the data, we could move ahead quickly," Chen said, which led to the gap in pace.
Fei Wen-chi also explained that it all began because at the start of this year they received a plan from the Ministry of Health and Welfare saying they should assess pesticide residue standards for more than ten kinds of animal products and make recommendations, and fipronil was one of them; therefore, even before the fipronil incident broke out, the institute was already preparing to set a residue standard.
As for why it was set so quickly, Fei said it was because the Executive Yuan instructed that they should "speed up" the assessment of fipronil, so the institute sent the egg residue standard assessment report to the Ministry of Health and Welfare at the end of September, and recommended a 10 ppb residue standard value.
Expert Tseng Te-tzu: at the time of the meeting the residue value was already going to be set, but social atmosphere was taken into account for a buffer
"Indeed," admitted Tseng Te-tzu, who participated in the expert meeting at the time. In fact, when the meeting was held, the experts all already knew a residue standard had to be set, but out of consideration for the social atmosphere, they decided to give some buffer time; although it was a delaying tactic, "but you can't delay it!" Not long after, it was again revealed that eggs produced by a livestock farm in Tainan tested at 10 ppb, exceeding the fipronil limit. "If it should be set, it must be set, otherwise it will keep breaking out endlessly."
"The residue standard really should be set too," Tseng also pointed out. After all, most of Taiwan's feed is imported from the United States, and the United States also has experiments showing that after laying hens are fed feed with a fipronil residue of 9 ppb, the eggs they produce will test positive for fipronil, so the residue standard was set at 30 ppb. "If it should be set, it must be set."
The institute proposed a "10 ppb residue standard": on what basis?
That said, on what basis exactly was this 10 ppb residue standard set? And where was the promised one-year "local background value investigation"? What was monitored? Tsai Wei-jen, head of the Applied Toxicology Division at the Agricultural Chemicals and Toxic Substances Research Institute, said the institute began island-wide sample monitoring in January this year, testing more than 200 items of domestic and imported poultry and livestock meat, edible offal, and fat, to understand the actual domestic animal product situation, and only then estimated the recommended residue value.
Tsai said the data showed that most domestic exposure sources came from "feed"; in response, Fei Wen-chi also explained that the reason for recommending 10 ppb was the consideration that imported feed grains might have fipronil residue. After all, when growing crops such as soybeans, corn, and wheat abroad, fipronil can be used, and related fipronil residue standards are also set; "if Taiwan does not set a residue standard, but when the grain arrives in Taiwan, the fipronil has not yet dissipated, then would that not be troublesome," Fei stressed, saying we cannot diverge from international practice.
Fei further stated that the currently recommended fipronil residue standard for eggs is 10 ppb, already lower than Japan's 20 ppb and the United States' 30 ppb, repeatedly stressing that residue standards should align with international practice.
News reference figures: In August the Council of Agriculture surveyed 1,459 laying hen farms nationwide, and 45 farms tested positive for egg fipronil residue exceeding 5 ppb (the EU standard), of which 8 farms had residue values between 5 and 10 ppb. Another 37 farms exceeded 10 ppb. In September one new violation had a fipronil residue of 10 ppb, and in October one new farm had a residue of 17 ppb.
After the residue standard value is set, how will livestock authorities prevent illegal pesticide use?
Now that the institute has proposed a recommended fipronil residue standard value of 10 ppb, although it has not yet passed review by the Food and Drug Administration, how will agricultural authorities and livestock authorities ensure that future egg fipronil detection values are environmental background values, rather than laying hen farmers illegally using the pesticide?
Wang Chung-shu, deputy director of the Council of Agriculture's Livestock Department, first clarified, "Do not misunderstand that setting a residue value means opening up the use of fipronil." The Livestock Department's stance remains unchanged: if it is banned, it is still banned, and misuse must still be penalized; Wang further stated that after the egg fipronil residue standard is set, the Livestock Department will follow up with related supporting measures.
Wang Chung-shu said that every year, in conjunction with feed sampling inspections, pesticide testing is carried out, and currently only six pesticides are listed for testing; in the future fipronil will be included as one of the monitoring items. As for what the feed monitoring value will be set at? Wang said it still needs to wait until the terminal residue tolerance value for eggs is set, and only then can the feed side be further back-calculated and converted, to serve as a checkpoint.
Pesticide standards in turmoil, risk communication made worse?
Besides the controversy over the fipronil standard review, it also recently emerged that the review of more than 600 pesticides and the setting of residue standards are stuck at the Food and Drug Administration. An insider at the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine pointed out that since last year's fluopicolide incident, the pesticide management process, originally handled separately by the Council of Agriculture's Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine and the Ministry of Health and Welfare's Food and Drug Administration, has been "almost entirely thrown into disarray."
After new pesticide applications are accepted at the front end and toxicology and other tests are completed, and the cases are sent to the Food and Drug Administration, the setting of residue standards comes to an abrupt halt; to date, more than 600 pesticide reviews are stuck within the Food and Drug Administration, the insider at the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine said.
In response, the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine also pointed out that this is mainly due to the impact of three provisos from legislators, including "not being the first in the world to set a residue standard, the total intake control baseline for the acceptable daily intake (ADI) per person per day must be lowered from 80% to 70%, and the residue tolerance must not be higher than that of other countries." "Such rules are like a tightening band wrapped around the Ministry of Health and Welfare, so pesticide application cases that have completed testing remain stuck at the Food and Drug Administration, and it even goes so far as to require the Council of Agriculture to review." In response, Tseng Te-tzu also solemnly called for residue standard setting to return to professionalism and not descend into populism.
From the fluopicolide pesticide application to the fipronil egg residue incident, when the storm broke, experts and scholars all stressed the importance of "risk communication", believing the government should do a good job of risk communication to avoid causing social panic; but taking this fipronil egg residue standard-setting process as an example, when the livestreamed expert meeting concluded that the residue standard would only be reassessed "after one year," and even held a public livestreamed meeting to demonstrate credibility, while at the same time news emerged that a recommended residue standard value had been urgently sent for review, will this once again cast a shadow of distrust over "pesticide residue standard review" in the public mind? This is worth continued observation.