CAIRO - It is regrettable that certain senior officials ordered the closure of the only laboratory in Egypt that analysed compounds that are harmful to human health, such as carcinogenic dioxins found in foodstuffs. It was officials in the Control Export and Import Authority who ordered this lab closed, in the interests of a number of Egyptian importers, regardless of the health of the public, especially children who consume milk, biscuits and other foodstuffs from abroad that may contain dioxins. The lab, affiliated to the Ministry of Agriculture, is responsible for examining consignments of imported foodstuffs. In future, such consignments will only be exposed to a superficial examination in other Ministry of Health laboratories, which are not qualified to detect dioxins in foodstuffs, according to the Manager of the Central Laboratory, Sohair A. Gad. Dioxins, the most dangerous pollutants in foodstuffs, may be found in dairy products, meat, poultry and fish. “Such pollutants are also found in industrial countries and the Central Laboratory has previously rejected a number of consignments of milk and fish, because they contain high levels of dioxins. “Analysing dioxins is complicated and expensive, so some governmental authorities have resorted to the old testing methods known as PCBs, but these cannot detect dioxins,“ Sohair explains. “Only the Central Laboratory at the Ministry of Agriculture was capable of testing for dioxins and training technicians to do so.” She said that the Central Laboratory had been testing foodstuffs for dioxins since 1996 and that the State shouldn't have closed it down, for the sake of citizens' health. Meanwhile, Mohssen Siyam, Director-General of Veterinary Quarantine, has appealed to the new Minister of Agriculture, Salah Youssef, to reopen the Central Laboratory, because contaminated foodstuffs are now entering the country undetected. He told Al-Ahram semi-official newspaper that former Minister of Economy and Foreign Trade Boutros Boutros Ghali sometimes allowed consignments of imported foodstuffs unfit for human consumption to enter the country, for the benefit of certain businessmen. Professor of Ecology Samia Galal says that dioxins pose the biggest danger to human health and the environment. In 1977, it was discovered that dioxins cause skin cancer, infertility in both sexes and defects in the immune system. They also harm the lungs.
