Dutch food safety authority tests chicken meat for fipronil

Dutch food and consumer product safety authority NVWA decided to test chicken meat for fipronil after all. Admin from company ChickFriend showed that the company used the toxic insecticide at a number of meat companies too, AD reports.

ChickFriend is considered the source of the fipronil contamination in the Netherlands.

"This week we are going to do sample slaughters to see whether there is fipronil in the meat. Last week all our attention was focused on eggs", a spokesperson for NVWA said to the newspaper.

Last week millions of eggs were recalled from thousands of supermarkets in the Netherlands and Germany because they contained too high quantities of fipronil. Fipronil is an insecticide used against ticks, fleas and lice. ChickFriend used an insecticide containing fipronil to treat blood lice at a number of Dutch poultry farms.

The World Health Organization considers fipronil to be "moderately toxic" to humans. Large quantities can cause liver, kidney and thyroid gland damage. The European Union tightened its rules around the use of this substance early this year.