No eating eggs from hens ‘in the whole of Flanders, Belgium’ due to PFAS contamination

By Helen Lyons | The Brussels Times | February 7, 2022

Read the full article by Helen Lyons (The Brussels Times)

“Due to pollution from a 3M factory in the neighbourhood of Zwijndrecht in Antwerp, the government advised people living within a certain radius of the plant to stop eating eggs and vegetables from their hens and gardens, but this newest report expands that radius to the entirety of the Flemish Region.

‘In the whole of Flanders – also in non-suspected PFAS risk locations – there is a problem for PFOS in the consumption of eggs from privately-owned laying hens,’ the report found, adding that the share of PFAS in eggs is much higher than in home-grown vegetables.

Eggs make up the vast majority of exposure

Eggs account for 98.7% of local PFAS exposure in people with their own gardens and chicken runs.

‘Even consumption of less than one egg per week from home-grown chickens results in the risk index being exceeded,’ the report said.

Belgium doesn’t currently have any standards for PFAS, so the Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain (FASFC) applies ‘action limits’ for now, which has led to some conflicting advice in the past. For example, the Flemish government said people living in the Zwijndrecht area should not consume eggs from their own hens, but that eggs produced by professional farmers in the same area could still be sold.”…

This content provided by the PFAS Project.