Network of PCDD/F and PCP in Guar Gum
Contamination of Guar Gum from India with PCDD/F and PCP
The Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) of the European Commission received on 24 July 2007 in the evening a notification from the competent authorities of Switzerland concerning a finding of a serious contamination by dioxins and pentachlorophenol in guar gum originating from India.
An overview of this incident and a summary of the action taken by EU Commission on this contamination of guar gum is available:
Proficiency test on the determination of PCDD/F, PCB and PCP in Guar Gum
In the interest of an uniform approach within the EU, the Commission services derived reference points of action for unacceptable levels of dioxins and pentachlorophenol in guar gum. Some analytical results for determination of these contaminants in guar gum raised questions regarding reliability of the applied methods.
Therefore it was concluded at the workshop of the CRL for dioxins and PCBs in Food and Feed (held on 5-6 November 2007 with representatives from the Commission, National Reference Laboratories [NRLs], the CRL for Single Residue Methods [CRL-SRM] Stuttgart, Germany, and invited experts) to organize a study on determination of dioxins (PCDD/F), PCBs (dioxin-like PCBs and indicator PCBs) and pentachlorophenol (PCP) in guar gum samples in 2008.
This proficiency test was open for participation of European national reference and official laboratories and private laboratories worldwide performing analyses of PCDD/F, PCB and PCP.
53 official and private laboratories analyzing PCDD/F and PCB using confirmatory and screening methods and 41 laboratories analyzing PCP participated in this Guar Gum PT. Preliminary results for PCDD/F, PCB and PCP were discussed at the CRL-NNRL workshop in July 2008.
Additionally a summary of this guar gum case and the analytical problems observed was also presented at the Dioxin Conference 2008 in Birmingham.
