Latest scare in Hong Kong - cancer-causing chemical in eel meat

Aug 21 2005

Health officials in Hong Kong say they have found a suspected cancer-causing chemical in some eels.

The eels and eel products are on sale in grocery stores and restaurants in the city.

This disturbing revelation is the latest in yet another food scare to hit the territory.

According to Health officials the contaminated eels and related products, are being destroyed and random tests are being carried out.

The chemical, which is known as malachite green, has now been placed on a list of restricted substances.

Hong Kong relies heavily on mainland China for food supplies, and the eel problem is the latest in a string of health and food problems there.

The territory has already banned pork imports from parts of China after a pig-borne disease there killed 39 people.

Apparently health officials have said that some of the eel meat that tested positive for the chemical came from China.

Eddy Chan, deputy secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, says the test results are obviously not very encouraging; eleven of 14 samples tested positive for the chemical and they are waiting for the results of tests on another 13 products.

Chan says they will take precautionary action to protect public health and are increasing random sampling at the retail level.

Scientists have found malachite green to be carcinogenic in rats. It has been widely used by fish farmers to kill parasites.

Chan says the health authorities were expanding their checks to take in fresh fish in markets and restaurants.

Although the chemical is banned in many countries, including China, Guangdong province, a neighbour to Hong Kong, blocked exports of all eel products recently after the substance was detected in eels in China's Guangxi and Fujian provinces.

Hong Kong Health Minister York Chow has already warned the public not to eat the popular delicacy, but as yet the government has not banned imports.

In the first six months of the year, the territory imported nearly 1,500 tonnes of live, fresh, chilled, frozen or processed eels, roughly a third of which came from the mainland.

The Health, Welfare and Food bureau has said in a report, that in the first six months of the year, the territory imported nearly 1,500 tonnes of live, fresh, chilled, frozen or processed eels; a third of which came from the mainland, while about half came from Indonesia.

Chow has told a hearing at the Legislative Council, that the territory's health authorities were considering establishing a food safety centre, in view of the the eel crisis and the pig disease, Streptococcus suis bacteria.

The pig-bourne disease has infected more than 200 people in the southwestern province of Sichuan and killed as many as 39, and fears are growing that the bacteria may have spread to other parts of China.

Since the outbreak in China was first reported in June, four people have been infected in Hong Kong, and nine so far this year.

Apparently Hong Kong will dispatch inspectors to the city of Shenzhen, which is on its border, and to the central province of Henan, to assess the situation.