Dioxins in the food chain
Prevention and control of contamination
Dioxins are formed as unwanted by-products from a number of human activities including certain industrial processes. In terms of dioxins release into the environment, waste incinerators are often the worst culprits due to incomplete burning. Food of animal origin is the predominant route of human exposure due to the deposition of dioxins in the fat component of animal products. Dioxins have been showed to cause a wide variety of toxic effects and to be carcinogenic in humans and animals. To respond to the numerous recent queries concerning dioxins contamination of food, FAO has recently developed a fact sheet summarising undated information. [download fact sheet]
AGA in action
On 28 February 2008 the Republic of Latvia entered into membership of the European Commission for the Control of Foot-and-Mouth disease (EUFMD). This brings to 35 the number of member countries of the EUFMD. The EUFMD Commission was established in 1954 under the auspices of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, at a time when Foot-and-Mouth Disease was ravaging post-war Europe, with the initial goals of combating FMD in Europe and of co-ordinating the national FMD control programmes. The Commission is an Article XIV body, semi-autonomous in the FAO structure, governed and fully financed by its member countries. Through it's efforts to promote cooperation between the member countries in FMD control operations, and with countries in the neighbourhood of the member states, which include those in the Near-East, West Asia and North Africa, the improvement of the disease situation in Europe has been followed by co-ordinated efforts to safeguard the situation by progressive involvement of neighbouring regions in the fight against the infection. [...]