Smuggled chicken contains antibiotics that could be harmful to health of consumers, informed the Vietnam Food Administration under the Ministry of Health.
The environmental police said they have uncovered 500 cases of smuggled chicken, and destroyed 127 tons of chicken, more than 46 tons of poultry meat and hundreds of thousands of eggs and chicken in the first six months of the year.
Health watchdogs collected and tested nearly 34,000 food samples finding nearly 5,700 samples to contain large quantities of borax, formaldehyde, colorants and preservatives exceeding permissible limits.
Dam Xuan Thanh, Deputy Head of the Department of Animal Health, said 100 percent of smuggled chicken is contaminated with antibiotics and very harmful chemicals, which have been banned in Vietnam a long time ago.
For instance, the Department of Animal Health in Hanoi collected and tested five samples of poultry in November 2012 and found most of them to contain Sulfadiazin 20 times more than permissible levels.
Despite warning of health watchdogs, some people still buy such unhealthy poultry due to its cheap price. Chloramphenicol found in food samples is banned since 2001 all across the world. The most serious adverse effect associated with Chloramphenicol is bone marrow toxicity, Aplastic anemia. The effect usually occurs months after Chloramphenicol use has been stopped.
Moreover, if a person eats meat containing Chloramphenicol and other antibiotics in general, it would cause resistance in human.
Local poultry breeders affirm they do not use antibiotics as they spend much on raising poultry and sell at a low price, hence they cannot spend more on antibiotics to add to the produce.
