Taiwan’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said that the case of a dioxin-contaminated duck is an isolated incident. The FDA’s statement on Thursday came after one duck was found to contain excessive level of dioxin in July. The FDA said that it has since conducted inspections on eight duck farms, and no other ducks contaminated with dioxin were found.
The FDA conducted a random check in July in southern Taiwan and tested the dioxin levels in 120 farm products. One duck was found to have dioxin levels at 15.1 picograms per kilogram. That’s about 8.5 time higher than the nation’s maximum permissible level.
The FDA said that it is still unknown why this duck contained such a high level of dioxin. It also said that the Ministry of Health and Welfare has also checked ducks produced by the same supplier, but no contamination has been found in other ducks.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare says that since 2004, there have been more than 2,300 cases where food or human blood samples were found to contain dioxin. But none of these cases exceeded the maximum permissible level. If more cases of dioxin contamination are found in the future, the ministry will start a monitoring mechanism to ensure consumer food safety.