The scandal of contaminated eggs is the health news for this month of August 2017: after the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Sweden, eggs contaminated with fipronil (an insecticidal substance used to eradicate lice in chickens) have been spotted in France, first in Vienne and Maine-et-Loire, then in Pas-de-Calais and Somme.
Alerted, the Food Safety Agency (ANSES) looked into the issue. This Friday, August 11, 2017, the health authorities finally gave their verdict: the health risk in the event of consumption of contaminated eggs is described as “very low in view of the levels of fipronil which are observed in the contaminated eggs, but also in view of French food consumption habits ”.
250,000 eggs contaminated with fipronil put on the market between April and July
More specifically, ANSES states that children aged 1 to 3 can consume 1 contaminated egg per day (and this figure rises to 10 eggs per day for adults) “without exposing themselves to an acute risk”. Not enough to panic, so …
A reassuring verdict since, this Friday, August 11, the Ministry of Agriculture confirmed that nearly 250,000 consumer eggs contaminated with fipronil had been “placed on the market” in France between April 2017 and July 2017. In large quantities, fipronil is considered “moderately toxic” to humans by the World Health Organization (WHO).
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