6 maggio 2008

CAP in powdered milk and capsules of royal jelly

Chloramfenicol is an antibiotic used in veterinary medicine. It is included in the list of banned substances and it is generally tested for in milk, in muscles of cattle, in seafood products and in honey. The RASFF (Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed) of EU recently reported cases of contamination...

...in powdered milk and royal jelly with levels of chloramfenicol well above that established as the minimum required performance limit -0.3 ppb- from the European Commission (Dec.  2003/181/CE of March 13 2003), for all matrixes. In poland, testing the material coming into the country showed some powdered milk, both skimmed and whole, coming from Ukraine and intended for animal feed ,were contaminated with high levels of chloramfenicol of 7.18 to 50.77ppb respectively. Besides the matrixes more commonly contaminated, which include honey, CAP has also been found products like royal honey.The RASFF in the past weeks reported about three cases of royal jelly capsules contaminated with CAP, coming fromGuernsey,China and Turkey, heading for the country or already in the United kingdom market. The levels of contamination were 21ppb,13ppb and 1 ppb respectively.