Decision 2008/352 - 2008/352/EC: Commission Decision of 29 April 2008 imposing special conditions governing guar gum from or consigned from India due to contamination risks of those products by pentachlorophenol and dioxins (notified under document number C(2008) 1641) - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

L 117/42

High levels of pentachlorophenol and dioxins have been found in certain batches of guar gum originating in or consigned from India. Such contamination constitutes a threat to public health within the Community if no measures are taken to avoid the presence of pentachlorophenol (PCP) and dioxins in guar gum.

In response to this finding of elevated levels of PCP and dioxins, the Commission carried out an urgent inspection visit to India from 5 to 11 October 2007. The objective was to gather information on the possible source of the contamination and to assess the control measures put in place by the Indian authorities to avoid the re-occurrence of this contamination. The inspection team concluded that there is to date insufficient evidence of the cause of the contamination incident, and the investigation carried out by the Indian authorities has been inadequate to provide any conclusions. With availability of sodium pentachlorophenolate and its use in the guar gum industry, and with a largely self regulated industry, there are inadequate controls in place to ensure that this contamination does not occur again.

Without prejudice to the control obligations of the Member States, the measures to be adopted further to the likely imports of contaminated products should form a comprehensive and common approach allowing rapid and effective action to be taken and avoiding disparities between the treatment of the situation by the various Member States. It is therefore appropriate to adopt special measures at Community level.

To prevent fraudulent practice with the aim of evading from the application of special conditions provided for in this Decision to protect animal and public health, it is important that compound foodstuffs and feedingstuffs containing to a significant amount guar gum originating in or consigned from India are also within the scope of this Decision. A threshold of 10 % is established.

The Community Reference Laboratory for Dioxins and PCBs in Feed and Food has carried out a study on the correlation between PCP and dioxins in contaminated guar gum from India. From this study it can be concluded that guar gum containing a level of PCP below the level of 0,01 mg/kg does not contain unacceptable levels of dioxins.

The Vimta Laboratory in Hyderabad, which was visited by the inspection team, is an accredited, well staffed and well equipped laboratory. Analytical performance for PCP in this laboratory was found to be adequate. The analytical performance in the other visited laboratories was assessed to be inadequate.

It is appropriate to require that all consignments of guar gum or products containing guar gum at significant amounts originating in or consigned from India and imported into the Community intended for human or animal consumption, should be accompanied by an analytical report issued by a laboratory accredited according EN ISO/IEC 17025 for the analysis of PCP in food and feed or by a...