Euro Legislation Increases Risk of Salmonella Warns MEP

New EU environmental legislation could stop food and feedstuffs being chemically treated to prevent Salmonella and other infections for humans. This would have extremely dangerous health implications warns East Midlands MEP Emma McClarkin who is backing local company Anitox in fighting this potential food safety loophole.

Currently, the chemical treatment which prevents Salmonella is sold under an EU biocides regulation. Now the EU plans to scrap that legislation leaving a legal uncertainty behind the status of the product. This would result in the product not being sold as you need a licence to sell it and consequently animal’s food would be untreated and leave humans at risk of Salmonella.

The last research into the number of cases of Salmonella was carried out in 2004 and revealed that there were 192,703 cases across the EU. Emma McClarkin, local Conservative MEP, is gravely concerned that hundreds of thousands of people, in the now enlarged EU, will be left at risk of infection if this product is not in use.

This week, McClarkin has proposed an amendment to the legislation which would prevent the current legal description of this life-saving product from disappearing.

McClarkin comments from the European Parliament:

“Anitox, the company which has the exclusive right to sell the biocide that decontaminates animal food from Salmonella, have their UK base in the East Midlands. They contacted me with their concerns over this thoughtless EU plan to change the current legislation which would prevent them from selling the Salmonella preventing product.

“It is unthinkable to have a gap in the market for preventing Salmonella due to EU red tape.

“I have secured the support of many parliamentary colleagues in the European Parliament to prevent this vital product being left in legal limbo which will ultimately risk the lives of those across the EU.”

Notes to editors:

1. It was the European Food Safety Authority’s Scientific Panel on Biological Hazards which concluded that there had been 192,703 cases of Salmonella in the EU in 2004.