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By Lee Kyung-min
The government said Monday that five insecticides it has identified so far in the contaminated egg scandal do not pose health problems as if ingested they are removed from the body within a month.
The five chemical agents fipronil, bifenthrin, flufenoxuron, etoxazole and pyridaben are used to kill pest infestations.
This is in line with doctors' assessments last Friday that the maximum level detected in a single egg was not enough to cause problems and so people should not panic.
"People who have eaten contaminated eggs need not worry too much as they do not stay in the body as organs excrete them," an official from the Ministry of Food Safety said at a press conference.
For eggs tainted with fibronil, the most harmful of the five, to cause acute toxicity, a child aged between one and two would have to consume 24 eggs at once. Those aged between three and seven would have to eat 37 eggs; while for adults the number is 126.
The ministry said the contamination poses no major health concerns to adults who eat 2.6 such eggs daily every day. Another ministry official said adults who have eaten more than this also need not worry as they could just experience mild nausea or hand tremors.
"The amount of fipronil found in eggs was one-fifteenth percent of that found in the European scandal. We consulted numerous experts and they all said the eggs here do not pose significant concerns," he added.
Early this month, millions of fibronil-tainted eggs were pulled from supermarket shelves in more than a dozen European countries. They came from the Netherlands, one of Europe's biggest egg producers.
The government here said it has destroyed 2.43 million eggs and seized 4.51 million, most of which were found in distributors' storage facilities. About 330,000 eggs were removed from restaurants and food processors that used eggs as ingredient.
The ministry said 52 farms sold eggs that were so contaminated with high levels of harmful chemicals that they should have been banned from being sold.
They were among 89 farms with contaminated eggs, though the remainder had permissible levels of insecticides. The results were drawn up after the government inspected 1,239 farms _ 683 organic and 556 non-organic ones.
The government said the inspection is ongoing at two farms in North Gyeongsang Province where permissible levels of dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) were found late last week.
A ministry official said based on data thus far, no major health concerns were likely from these.
The government said it will promptly revise the related regulation on oversight of egg production and distribution to ensure all products are coded to identify which of 17 provincial areas they came from.
The measure reflects public outrage after the government inspection found insecticide-tainted eggs had the wrong coding on them or had no coding at all.
Under related regulations set up in 2010, distributors who buy eggs from farmers, should code every egg to track the distribution process to help ensure consumers know where they came from. Farmers that distribute eggs themselves must also comply with the regulation.
The ministry said a law will be set up to impose harsh punishment on violators. Currently they are only subject to verbal warnings or up to a 15-day suspension of business operations.
The government will strictly enforce the law to inspect farms and distributors. This came after data from the food safety ministry showed no record of punishment for violators between 2015 and 2016 and no record of government inspection reports on them since 2010.
Meanwhile, President Moon Jae-in apologized for the scandal, vowing to come up with measures to enhance food safety and the livestock farming environment.
"I apologize for causing concern to the public. The scandal not only shocked consumers, but farmers, restaurant owners and the food manufacturing industry. I am aware food safety directly affects public health. I will do my best to restore public trust in the government," Moon said during a Cabinet meeting.
